New R&D for the industry's first affordable, rugged DC solar generator to power agricultural equipment including: maize mills, water pumps, freezers, and more
The project will enable Amped’s research and development of an affordable, rugged DC solar generator to power agricultural equipment including: maize mills, water pumps, freezers, and more.
“We’re honored to receive this new agritech grant funding from Efficiency for Access to power productive use appliances for smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs,” said Kurt Kuhlmann. “Skipping the high voltage AC system approach in favor of solar DC will always be more reliable and cost effective for the end user and this invention fits squarely in our wheelhouse.”
Micro retailers or dukas would like an affordable DC solar generator which can be multipurpose to run appliances during the day and charge cell phones, run fans, and lights at night. Amped is addressing this unique market need for high-power agricultural solar-powered appliances.
Existing DC generators are limited to low voltages (typically 12 volts) and insufficient for powering larger productive-use loads. While some 48V DC solutions exist, those are few and remain cost-prohibitive. AC solar generators are always more costly, and very energy inefficient for high-power agricultural usage since efficient appliances are all fundamentally built around brushless DC motors in the 12-48V range
To date, Amped has built and deployed over 220,000 solar systems, and recently launched its EasyFreeze product line. With this R&D funding, Amped will bring its power electronics expertise to design a drop-in DC solar generator system that is one-third the cost of anything in the market today. With an integrated battery bank, 1kW true MPPT charge controller, and a 48V output for many different high-power agri appliances, our system will also be modular and easily field repairable and expandable.
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