Company
- CACI
- US Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC)
Challenge
The Command Power and Integration (CPI) division of CERDEC delivers portable and mobile power to soldiers in current operations. CERDEC collaborated with CACI to provide a portable renewable energy storage system (ESS) that integrates photovoltaic (PV) cells to capture energy and store it in Li-Ion batteries. The ESS integrates a bidirectional converter to provide a method of charging the batteries with AC power or with the PV cells, giving the ability to provide continuous AC or DC power to soldiers, and delivering an embedded solution for real-time data monitoring.
Solution
In order to provide real-time ESS system status, CACI and the US Army CERDEC reached out to Bloomy to integrate the energy monitoring platform, EnergyMAX. Bloomy’s EnergyMAX is an embedded power monitoring system which was configured to monitor all ESS internal AC and DC subsystems and critical operating information, including:
- Inverter AC voltages and currents
- Inverter DC voltages and currents
- 4kW Battery voltage and current
- PV panel voltages and current
- Solar radiation and atmospheric properties
- Internal system temperatures
- Battery BMS communications
System status such as power quality, efficiency, input/output power, and state of health were calculated in real-time and displayed on a custom user interface, providing the operators with the critical system performance data needed.