- Designed for Solar Water Pumping
- Basic Components of a PV-Direct Water Pumping System
- Applications
- Solar Pump Types
- Efficiency
- Solar vs Diesel Calculator
- Solar Pump ROI Pool Calculator
- Water Pump Sizing Questionnaire
- SmartSolution Hybrid Power
Designed for Solar Water Pumping
Designing for off grid
LORENTZ have a 100% focus on designing and building solar water pumps and have been doing so for over 20 years. Their products are almost always installed in the most remote and harshest off-grid environments.
Designing products for off-grid use means that the engineering priorities are different from their competitors.
The systems must work first time
When you are installing a product 30 hours away from your workshop, in a desert, on a mountainside, in a jungle or “just” on the other side of a ranch then you need to know that it works out of the box.
Every single LORENTZ pump system is tested for around 90 minutes before it is packed. They do a mixture of in-process automated testing combined with real testing of every pump system. Every motor and pump is run in water and measured before delivery.
Products must be reliable and have a long life
Reliability comes from designing the system components to run in real world conditions. Their experience of having pump systems installed in over 150 countries over the past 20 years has taught them what is needed to design realiable products.
They choose the right materials and production techniques to give their products a long life, even in the most difficult dusty, hot, damp, cold, or dry conditions.
Be easy to service and repair
If something does go wrong then all LORENTZ systems are designed to be field serviceable. All systems are modular allowing electronic boards, motors, pump ends and other components to be easily replaced. Not only are they serviceable but component spare parts are priced proportionately to the whole system price.
Applications
Drinking Water
LORENTZ solar water pumping systems have a proven track record of delivering drinking water to homes, communities and livestock all around for over 20 years. As an application, there is nothing more critical than drinking water. Therefore, choosing a system that you know will deliver the water you need, reliably and predictably is of the upmost importance.
Irrigation
Solar water pumping systems are a perfect match for irrigation – a solution for remote locations where more sun increases the demand for water.
Industry
Industry in both developed and fast developing countries can suffer from unreliable grid power or very high peak rate power which has an adverse effect on productivity and competitiveness.
Responsible Leisure
Pools pumps are the second biggest energy consumer in many homes (air conditioning being the first). The LORENTZ PS2 solar pool pump will keep your swimming pools crystal clear without any electricity costs.
Efficiency
Efficiency is very important for a solar water pumping system. Efficiency ultimately defines how much water the system will pump with the available power. With solar power (PV modules) then you are making a capital investment in your power source. With an efficient system you either spend less for the same amount of water or get more water from the same power source.
Simply more water
Efficient systems will start pumping earlier in the day, pump more water throughout the day and will stop pumping later in the day.
Why are LORENTZ systems more efficient?
Efficiency is in the company DNA, you even see the ETA η efficiency symbol in their logo.
As the energy from the sun is not constant, either seasonally or daily due to changing weather, a solar pumping system must adapt to the changing conditions and deliver the maximum water possible with the amount of power available. Software in the pump controller looks at the available power and changes how the pump is powered to maximise the water output.
Choosing the right materials and designs for products allows for precise tolerances, this assists with mechanical efficiency.
The LORENTZ ECDRIVE uses DC brushless motor technology, this technology provide almost twice the real world efficiency of equivalent sized AC motors.
SmartSolution Hybrid Power
When only hybrid power makes sense
There are applications and times when solar power alone is not the most practical or economical solution. Think of applications where there are times in the day or times in the year where sizing a solar system for the peaks means that the solar system is oversized for most of the year and so not the best investment.
Let us think about a simple example: If we have fruit tree irrigation, we can size a system that delivers all the water for 10 months of the year, but we need 30% extra for the 2 months before harvest. Using a hybrid system, we can meet 95% of our annual demand with solar and the 5% annual extra (30% for 2 months) with generator power.
Installing expensive and inefficient battery systems are not a good answer as the capital investment and relatively short life would make the project very expensive. Installing hybrid power is a much more sensible way to manage these short-term needs.
The LORENTZ SmartSolution
In this example the LORENTZ PSk2 system has SmartSolution hybrid power:
Blending power
The LORENTZ SmartSolution Hybrid Power automatically blends power from solar and external sources, only using the external source where your demand for water requires it. This is not a switching system that switches between sources but effectively blends power so that only the power that is needed is demanded from the non-solar source. For a hybrid generator solution, this means running at partial load, for a hybrid grid solution this means using kWh from the grid as a top up.
Any water need is met automatically
Where there is a flow or pressure critical water pumping application, anything from an industrial process to a commercial swimming pool, the LORENTZ SmartSolution can solve the problem. PSk2 manages the start and end of day transition from solar to grid or from solar to generator power seamlessly and without the need for any operator intervention.