By James Ng - Published May 11, 2021
By James Ng, Eltek BU Singapore
Raffles Lighthouse is an island offshore from the main island of Singapore. This M1 base station site was built to enhance the mobile coverage along Singapore’s coastal waters and offshore islands.
The site is currently running on an Eltek Solar Hybrid solution to provide the power and battery back-up to its base station and transmission network. Our solution enables a significant reduction of the diesel consumption of its Genset and provides OPEX savings for M1.
Delta had a further collaboration with M1 to enhance the Solar Hybrid system’s resilience with the recent implementation of Lithium batteries on this site. This proposed solution would provide redundancy through the replacement of the original OPzV 2Vdc batteries of 1 bank to the new Lithium batteries 12Vdc of 21 banks with the same footprint due to its high energy density (more backup per footprint).
This solution is extremely suitable for offshore islands due to its higher operating temperature, ease of installation and mobility, especially when considering replacement in the future.
The project is nonetheless challenging since the site is situated offshore. Therefore, even sea tides need to be taken into consideration before any delivery through the cargo boat can be made.
The hoist in the jetty was used to hoist the batteries and cabinets from the boat to the jetty (and vice versa). Careful review of the work method statements was done before any work was carried out and these had to be done within a single boat trip in order to be cost-effective for both Delta and the customer.
The project was successfully completed on time within schedule and budget by the Service team and commissioned by Ong Chin Hui (Service Tech support L3) in Singapore which further cemented Delta reputation in M1.