Signal Advantage is an Australian-owned and operated business specialising in producing corporate name badges for all types of businesses. As a local Gold Coast business the continual escalation in power costs have been a concern for the management, and as such it was decided that enquiries should be made into possible ways to lower the business quarterly power bills.
Operating from the Gold Coast suburb of Coomera, in an established premises with a large roof space and with the beautiful Gold Coast sun shining down for a good portion of the year solar power was an obvious choice as a potential option for reducing these power bills, so Gold Coast Solar Power Solutions were contacted to analyse this option.
On inspection of the business premises, examination of the electricity accounts and discussing the future plans for the business Gold Coast Solar Power Solutions designed a 30.45kW solar power system to suit the sites week day power consumption. As the Signal Advantage business is actually over 2 units a 10kW Fronius SYMO solar inverter was selected connected to 36 x 290W JA Solar panels for the unit with the smaller power consumption. For the unit with the main production component of the business and also the highest power consumption a 15kW Fronius SYMO inverter connected to 69 x 290W JA Solar panels was selected.
As the principle power consumption on the property is only on weekdays it leaves the 2 days over the weekend with a large amount of solar power production that is surplus to the business requirements. As this was the case the 15kW inverter was selected to allow for full export of surplus solar power over the weekends. With an inverter larger than 15kW in size Energex will usually request that the system be setup to be “zero export”. Zero export means that the solar power system would need to be setup to ensure that no solar power is sent back to the grid at all – by keeping to a 15kW inverter it ensures that full export is possible of all the weekend solar power production, which even with a small feed in tariff does make a big difference to the system returns in the long term.
The solar proposal utilising quality Fronius solar inverters and Tier 1 JA Solar panels complete with long warranties was presented to the business owner and with the systems estimated Return on Investment (RoI) of just 3 years and estimated power bill savings to an amount greater than $250,000 over the next 25 years the decision was made to move forward with the installation.
In June 2017 Gold Coast Solar Power Solutions supplied and installed 105 JA Solar 290W panels on the business connected to the two 3 phase Fronius SYMO solar inverters with zero down time for the business as the switchboard work, electrical connections and testing were scheduled to be completed outside of business hours.
With the installation of Fronius Smart meters the Signal Advantage management are able to keep an eye on the how the system is performing and how the consumption of the business is being offset by the solar power system. The Fronius Solar.Web monitoring portal also allows Gold Coast Solar Power Solutions to keep a close eye on the performance of the entire system and ensure the very highest yield is achieved for the customer.
Learn more about commercial solar power systems for businesses here.
Read more commercial solar power case studies here.
| Company / Organisation | Signal Advantage |
| Company Website | signaladvantage.com |
| Location | Coomera, Gold Coast Australia |
| Installation Date | June 2017 |
| Industry | Design, manufacture & supply of corporate ID products |
| Solution | 105 x 290 W JA Solar Panels 1 x Fronius SYMO 15 3 phase 15kW Inverter 1 x Fronius SYMO 10 3 phase 10kW Inverter 2 x Fronius 3 phase 63-3A Smart Meters |
| Estimated Savings Over 25 Years | Over $250,000.00 |
| CO2 Equivalent Abatement per year | 33 Tonnes |
| Energy Output per year | 40,471 kWh |