After picking, the red stigmas are separated from each flower by hand and dried gently, usually in a small electric dehydrator or drying cabinet at a controlled low temperature. Drying too slowly lets them spoil; drying too hot ruins colour and aroma. The harvest window is short, and each day's flowers have to be processed that day. Outside harvest, corms lifted for division may be stored in a cool, dry, ventilated space through summer.
A drying cabinet, a dehumidifier, a few fans, and lights for the separation table are small loads, but they matter enormously on the day. The UPS-mode inverter switches over instantly so the dryer's temperature controller does not reset mid-batch. The fuel cell then supplies the steady load from hydrogen made on off-peak power and stored at 30 bar or less for weeks.
How it works →
A saffron farm's drying, separation and storage loads sit easily within 15 kW continuous, leaving room for the house on the same supply. Round-trip efficiency is 30% or less, which matters little for such small loads during an outage but means running dryers from hydrogen every day would cost more than the grid. The value is in never losing a day's harvest to an outage.
Yes. The inverter runs in UPS mode, so the dryer's controller sees no interruption and holds its set temperature. That matters for colour and aroma in the finished saffron, which is what buyers judge it on.
On its own, perhaps not. It makes more sense when the house, a cool room or other farm loads share the same backed-up supply, with the saffron dryer protected alongside them.
Yes. A dehumidifier and ventilation fans are modest loads and well within 15 kW. Keeping corms dry over summer helps prevent rot. The switch-over is instant, so the fans and dehumidifier carry on through an outage without anyone needing to reset them.
Pilot installs go to people on this list first. Rural homes, farms and remote sites especially. No spam, no payment.