We are hearing more and more about solutions for making electricity available in remote locations. PES finds out about the latest revolutionary modular energy system, which might overcome the challenges of delivering electricity to rural areas. Power-Blox is the first scalable energy product that uses ‘Swarm Power’ and is capable of both storing and distributing electricity from a variety of inputs.
Power-Blox is the first modular solar energy system to offer alternating current up to the kilowatt range, based on swarm technology. This revolutionary concept also frees the supply to be completely mobile, serving as a portable outlet wherever it is required. Stäubli Electrical Connectors, the specialist in advanced contact technology and Power-Blox, the award-winning start-up, signed a strategic partnership and will together offer efficient solutions for energy storage and off-grid systems. This future-oriented partnership will develop innovative solutions for next-level autonomous power supplies.
The intelligent Power-Blox cubes are scalable, flexible and independent and can be used for a number of applications. At its simplest, a single Power-Blox 200 series cube and solar panel can function as an off-grid power supply, with the unit’s integrated 1.2 kilowatt-hour battery and 230 V AC/200 W inverter providing enough electricity to run a small fridge, a television, three 7 W-LED lights and a mobile phone charger.
However, these energy storage devices are designed to be stacked together to build a bigger unit with a larger capacity that caters to higher energy demands. Joined together into a micro-grid, each of the connected units can draw on the full power of all of the units combined. The user is able to enlarge the system’s capacity by simply stacking one cube on top of the other, thus creating ‘power walls’.
This modularity allows users to quickly scale up a system to provide more power or back-up capacity – without the need of any additional engineering, calculations or instructions. As the Power-Blox system has been conceived as a ‘plug and power’ solution, getting it up and running is an extremely user-friendly process that does not require any special configuration or further expertise.
