The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) has several high risk objects in Norway which are monitored against the risk of a landslide. One of them is Gámanjunni in the municipality of Kåfjord (Troms, Northern Norway), which we have monitored since 2015.
We needed a solution that could provide us stable 24 V at all time, 24/7, in a hard and cold environment. We are monitoring with GNSS receivers. We used fuel cells right from the start, and since 2015, the number of fuel cells in use has increased. The power demand is between 20-40 watt when we only need power for the GNSS receiver, 1 switch, and two 2.4/5 GHz radios, to approx. 60-80 watt when we run a camera instead of the GNSS receiver.
We needed a power solution that works in winter, when we have neither sunlight nor wind to generate power. Fuel cells are ideal for this purpose.
The EFOY Pro 2800, the latest fuel cell generation, is the ideal power supply solution for this application.
“Fuel cells are ideal for this purpose”
We needed a power solution that works in winter, when we have neither sunlight nor wind to generate power. Fuel cells are ideal for this purpose.
Per Steinar Lyngstad, Senior engineer
It depends on what kind of instruments are powered by the fuel cell. If we run a camera, which has a heater that demands approx. 51 watt, then we change the cartridges approx. every 2-3 months. This case occurs only in winter. At some places we only use a GNSS receiver and we could run the application for about one year with two M28 fuel cartridges, the whole winter included.
The EFOY Pro is integrated in an isolated box with two batteries, two fuel cartridges and communication hardware. We have approx. 9 fuel cells. Every box has also solar panels and some have also wind power.
