Gearing Up for 2009

With the summer fast approaching, Firefly Solar has been very busy since Christmas upgrading the ‘Orion’ solar generators. The overhaul has included improvements across the whole system, increasing the efficiency of the generators as well as making them easier to transport.

An extra kilowatt of solar panels have been added to the existing array, meaning an increase of 10% solar yield. This will be added to as the summer approaches.

The system has now been fitted with an automatic switching system to turn on a backup power supply should the weather be dreadful and the battery backup run dangerously low. This upgrade has been added to give clients complete peace of mind. With the switching system in place the ‘Orion’ generators are now fail-safe.

There is no getting around the fact that solar specific batteries are very heavy. By modifying the weight distribution of the trailers themselves and upgrading our current fleet, fuel consumption of the towing vehicles has been dramatically improved, thus saving on CO2 during transportation.

The biggest upgrade can be seen in the solar charge controllers, which increase the overall system performance by 15%. With such a large increase, it is now possible for the Firefly Stage to grow larger whilst still running entirely off solar. This means there is now the capability of powering more lighting and a larger PA, allowing the system to entertain more people at once.

“We’re really pleased with the new features we’ve added to Orion,” says Paul Brain, Firefly’s technical director. “It’s great that we’ve been able to enhance both the system’s performance as well as its reliability. It means we can now look to powering bigger events, and of course we’re all very excited about touring a bigger, better version of the Firefly Stage this season.”

And with a major UK film Premier under their belts already this year as well as a calendar that is filling up daily, it looks like the increase in specification has come at the perfect time.