A boutique winery relies on a glycol chiller circulating coolant through jackets on fermentation tanks, must and transfer pumps, a pneumatic or membrane press with its compressor, a destemmer and crusher, lab equipment for checking ferments, and barrel hall humidifiers. Most of the time the chiller is the critical load: an active ferment generates heat, and without cooling a white ferment can climb well above where the winemaker wants it. Outages during autumn storms hit right when every tank is full.
We get asked about frost fans. They are large engines or electric motors that move huge volumes of air across a block on a still frosty night, and they draw far more than 15 kW each. A vineyard full of them is well beyond one unit, and powering them from hydrogen with round-trip efficiency of 30% or less would not make sense. This system is for the winery building, not the frost protection in the rows.
How it works →
Hydrogen made overnight on off-peak power is stored at 30 bar or less and keeps for weeks. When the grid drops, a UPS-mode inverter switches instantly so chiller controllers and pump drives do not reset, and the fuel cell keeps the battery charged. A small glycol chiller, pumps and lab gear fit within 15 kW continuous. A larger winery with big chillers, several presses and a bottling line running at once would need a larger or multi-unit setup sized in the pilot.
No. Frost fans each draw far more than 15 kW, and a block needs several. Frost pots burn fuel and are not electrical at all. This system is designed for winery buildings, not vineyard frost protection.
It will not need to. The inverter runs in UPS mode, so the chiller and its controller never see the grid drop. The battery covers compressor starts as the chiller cycles on and off during the outage.
A small bottling line may fit inside 15 kW if nothing else heavy runs at the same time. Bottling is usually planned, though, so most wineries would simply not bottle during a long outage. The pilot would look at the numbers.
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