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First Car Rental Pomona further invests in its Solar Power Plant

April 2018 - First Car Rental installed its first solar power plant at First Car Rental Pomona at the end of 2016, fortifying its continued commitment to reducing its environmental impact.

The solar power plant, a grid-tied system, continuously runs in tandem with the utility power grid. During the day, when the solar system outputs power, it becomes the primary provider and the utility is secondary.

In March 2018, the installation company, SolarXgen, initiated the implementation of an Energy Storage System (ESS). The current system did not store power - power generated photovoltaic (PV) system was consumed on-site and the excess fed back into the utility grid. This excess energy is not remunerated and is wasted into the utility network.


First Car Rental Pomona Solar Power Plant

In 2016, 415 solar panels were installed on 3 rooftops of the First Car Rental Pomona branch. This year, and ESS battery system has been added to store excess power.


The ESS system installed provides the following benefits:

  • Utilise a percentage of the excess energy produced to charge the ESS batteries and re-deploy energy to the morning and late afternoon peaks.
  • Provide a secondary solution of Uninterrupted Power. Should the utility power shut down, the battery storage will provide immediate response ensuring no downtime while the generator fires-up.
  • Reduces reactive power and will provide an additional saving on the utility bill through the reduced KVA (Power) load at the facility.

The now fully-integrated solar power system is monitored via Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) control system and a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC).

These systems allow remote monitoring and reporting and are able to match PV output to the building's energy demand, ensuring optimally timed consumption.

First Car Rental - Going Green with Purple Passion.


Watch the video below to see the installation of the First Car Rental Pomona solar power system.

First Car Rental solar panel instalation


For more news on First Car Rental, visit our News page.

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