Solar Powered Communal Refrigeration

The Tree_Sea.mals Solar Powered Communal Refrigeration system can provide cold storage for up to 1600 kg/day through the use of a cold room facility and solar PV mini-grid. The solar system consists of 57 x 250 W DC panels and 24 Lithium-ion batteries (900 Ah x 2 V). The solar panels will be backed up by an SMA Tripower 15000TL inverter while the batteries will have 3-SMA Sunny Island 8.0H inverters, each with AC output capacity.

Tree_Sea.mals plans to offer cold storage in two different size containers. The external dimensions of the smaller refrigerator measure 6 x 3 x 3 m with the larger container assumed to be double the size.

The system will utilize digital hooks for larger carcasses and crates for smaller meat products to assess kg of storage used. Similar to Pay-As-You-Go systems, customers will Pay-As-They-Store per kg/day.^{Interview with Representative in 2020}

Trees_Sea.mal plans to provide technical training following the assembly of refrigeration. Additionally, the system will be managed by two skilled community members. ^{Interview with Representative in 2020}

The company sourcing the refrigeration unit, Accent Cooling, provides 24-hour service as well.

25 years for the mini-grid system, and 10,000 life-cycle capacity for the batteries. Anticipated 25 year lifetime of the solar-refrigeration system.

While no third-party testing has been completed, the manufacturer has implemented a 1 kWp prototype for 16 consumers that live in 2 households, and 1 kiosk. Following installation, Tree_Sea.mals plans to track project impacts using an indicator metric tool that they developed.

Safety hazards include potential food contamination or expiration that would make consumption potentially dangerous.