AMPROTEQNetwork
Long, weak rural feeders
Ruraflex and Landrate sites are often at the end of long lines, with trips from storms, veld fires and faults.
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Industries · Agriculture
Battery storage for agriculture.
Farms sit at the end of long rural lines, with seasonal loads and a generator for when the feeder trips. Storage paired with solar carries the packhouse through the peaks, rides through outages and puts the genset back in reserve.
01 · The problem
What the site
is up against.
Season
Load that follows the harvest
Packing, pre-cooling and irrigation crowd into a few months, so the busiest weeks set the demand the farm pays for all year.
Tariff
A thin off-season price gap
Outside June to August the gap between peak and off-peak prices on Ruraflex is small, so storage alone does not always pay.
02 · What storage does
What the battery
does about it.
- 01Solar into the eveningStores midday solar and releases it in the evening peak; through HELIOS the array charges the battery directly on the DC side.
- 02Peak shiftingMoves packhouse and pre-cooling load out of the high-season peaks, when the price gap is widest.
- 03Ride-throughCarries the cold rooms, pumps and controls through a feeder trip, with transfer to island in under 10 ms through a PULSE switching cabinet.
- 04Diesel displacementThe genset becomes the last line of backup rather than a daily resource.
- 05Demand ceilingHolds the harvest-season half-hour peak so the notified demand can come down.
03 · Typical configuration
Indicative,
before the load study.
| Systems | A2000, or A1000 blocks in 1 MWh steps |
| Connection | 400 V on the farm or packhouse board |
| Duration | 2 hours, with a reserve held back for the cold rooms |
| Pairs with | HELIOS DC-coupled solar, existing roof PV and gensets |
| Commercial model | Purchase, with a 15-year O&M agreement; a service agreement as the alternative |
Every configuration is sized from the site's own interval data and tariff; this is a starting point, not a quote.
Part one
Where a farm’s power money goes, and how storage and sun bring it back.
The four-page sector brief, on the page: what Ruraflex charges in its peak windows and how thin the gap is the rest of the year, the system we put on the farm’s own board, what it does when the feeder trips, and what it returns.
Download the flyer04 · Where the money is
Winter pays the peak.
The sun pays the rest.
On Ruraflex a June-to-August peak kilowatt-hour costs six times an off-peak one. From September to May the gap is 2.5 times, thin for storage on its own. Midday sun, stored for the evening, closes it.
The case-study pack-house. The white line is grid draw with one APEX A2000 and a 600 kWp HELIOS array: near zero through both peak windows, under the 1 150 kW ceiling all day and refilled off-peak. The dashed gold line is all the solar on site, roof and ground.
Active energy, transmission zone 1. Landrate, the flat rural tariff for smaller supplies, has no peak at all: there the battery earns on outages and on stored sun.
Who it is forRuraflex and Landrate
| Operation | What drives the bill | Battery role |
|---|---|---|
| Pack-houses | Cold rooms in the winter peak | Peak shifting |
| Dairies | Milk cooling in both peaks | Peak shifting |
| Poultry houses | Fans that cannot stop | Ride-through |
| Grain drying | Weeks of heavy fan load | Demand ceiling |
| Irrigation | Long runs, mostly off-peak | Sun by day |
| Landrate supplies | Flat rate, no peak | Sun and outages |
3.5R mGross saving, year oneAt FY2027/28 prices
53%Energy saving from sun902 MWh a year through HELIOS
75%Less energy bought in peak514 MWh a year moved out
<5yearsSimple paybackOn an indicative turnkey cost
05 · The system
Low voltage,
on your own board.
One container on the farm’s critical board, a solar converter beside it and a transfer cabinet in front of it. Solaris™ EMS runs all three, under one point of responsibility.
Battery · APEXA2000
Battery, PCS, cooling and fire protection in one 20 ft high-cube, delivering 400 V straight onto the LV board.
- Energy
- 2 088 kWh · 8 strings
- Power
- 1 000 kW · 1 100 max
- Output
- 400 V, 3W + PE
- Thermal
- Liquid · ≤ 3 °C cell spread
- Enclosure
- IP54 · −25 … +60 °C
PV strings straight onto the battery’s DC bus, one conversion, no PV inverter. Sold only with an APEX A1000 or A2000.
- Power
- 500 kW DC bus
- MPPT
- 10 channels · 160 A each
- Battery port
- 600 – 950 V DC
- Stages
- 1 · DC/DC, no AC leg
- Enclosure
- IP55 outdoor · IP21 indoor
Grid and genset ahead of a thyristor switch; the critical bus, the battery and up to 2 MW of solar behind it.
- Power
- 1 000 kW · 1 100 max
- Transfer
- ≤ 10 ms, half a cycle
- Bus
- 400 V, 3W + N + PE
- Modes
- Grid · island · genset · bypass
- Enclosure
- IP55 · −35 … +50 °C
The cell maker's tabulated 20-year test set at 90 % depth, by cycles a day. The cyan line is the case pack-house’s duty.
Ageing you can bank onAPEX datasheet
≈ 7 000full cycles
To 70 % state of health at one cycle a day and 98 % depth. Measured on the cell, not assumed.
76 %health at year 15
At the case pack-house’s duty of 1.02 cycles a day and 90 % depth. No augmentation in the term.
≥ 88 %round trip
AC to AC, through the PCS. 94 % DC at the battery, beginning of life.
Solaris keeps 400 kWh in the battery at all times for the critical loads. It is never spent on the tariff.
06 · Feeder down?
The farm runs
as its own island.
Rural lines trip: storms, veld fires, theft. PULSE, the A2000 and HELIOS sit on the farm’s critical bus, so the loads that cannot stop do not, and the genset waits its turn.
01The critical loads never see the trip
PULSE opens in half a cycle and the A2000 takes the voltage. Cold rooms, poultry fans and milk cooling run on.
02Sun keeps charging off-grid
HELIOS sits on the battery’s DC bus, so the array keeps charging while the farm runs on its own.
03Genset last, at a good load
Solaris starts it only when the battery runs low. In the case study its hours fall from 64 to 14 a year.
04Back in phase
When Eskom returns, the PCS steers the island onto the grid; PULSE closes when both sides match.
07 · The return
An asset that pays for itself
in less than five years.
Figures from the modelled pack-house on this page, at an indicative turnkey cost. A site proposal replaces them with your own.
<5yearsSimple paybackOn an indicative turnkey cost
30%Project IRR, 15 yearsAfter O&M, no augmentation
5.9×The investment, returnedNet cash over the term
Three ways to buy
Purchase Most farms
Turnkey supply, install and commissioning. You own the plant; we run it under a 15-year O&M and availability agreement.
Service agreement
We own and run the plant for a fixed monthly fee, for operations that keep storage off the balance sheet.
Phased
Start with the critical board and the array; add a second A2000 when the next season’s plan allows.
Part two
Taking a citrus pack-house out of the peak.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
The eight-page business case, on the page: a composite citrus pack-house and cold store in the Letsitele valley, Limpopo, on a 22 kV rural line, modelled half-hour by half-hour for a year on Eskom’s 2026/27 Ruraflex tariff, then carried over fifteen years.
Download the business case08 · The site
A pack-house at the
end of a rural line.
The packing lines run April to September; the cold rooms run every hour of the year. The bill is R12.5 m, and 36 % of the energy cost is bought in 14 % of the hours.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
Site profileComposite
| Operation | Citrus pack-house + cold store |
| Region | Letsitele valley, Limpopo |
| Supply | 22 kV rural overhead line |
| Tariff | Ruraflex Ru12N, zone 1 |
| Transformers | 2 × 1 250 kVA, 22/0.4 kV |
| Notified demand | 1 700 kVA |
| Recorded peak | 1 584 kVA, June |
| Power factor | 0.90 lagging |
| Roof solar | 600 kWp, zero export |
| Standby | 500 kVA genset, cold store |
| Grid energy | 5.0 GWh a year |
| Annual bill | R12.5 m ex VAT |
Peak energy costs more than all off-peak energy, in a seventh of the hours. It is the line the battery attacks first.
The cold rooms set a floor that never moves. Irrigation is already pumped off-peak, so it stays on the grid.
Each column is a day from April 2026 to March 2027, each row a half-hour. The bright block is the packing season, densest from June to August when the lines run a second shift. The dark midday band is the roof array at work; the night band is the irrigation pumps.
01The brief
Cut the cost of the peak windows and hold the cold rooms through feeder trips, without touching packing throughput.
02The constraint
Capital is approved on payback: the board’s hurdle is five years. One spare way on the cold-store board and fallow land beside it.
03The risk
The feeder trips about 26 times a year. Each trip stops every compressor, and a cold-treatment run depends on holding fruit temperature.
09 · The load
The harvest lands
in the dearest months.
Valencias and navels are packed from April to September. The heart of it, June to August, is Eskom’s high season, when a peak kilowatt-hour costs six times an off-peak one.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
01The cold rooms never stop
Cold rooms and pre-cooling are over half the peak-window load. They cannot be switched off, only supplied differently.
02Winter costs 2.4 times more
The same kilowatt-hour costs R7.40 in a July peak and R3.07 in a November one, so three months carry most of the value.
03The sun is strongest in winter
The valley’s dry winter gives the array its best months exactly when the packing lines and the tariff peak together.
10 · The plant
One container,
one island.
The A2000 lands on the cold-store board behind a PULSE cabinet. A new array feeds its DC bus through HELIOS. The roof array and the packing lines on T2 stay as they are.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
Plant at a glancePer the range datasheets
| Battery | 1 × APEX A2000, 2 088 kWh LFP |
| Usable | 1 879 kWh at 90 % depth |
| Power | 1 000 kW, PCS inside, 400 V |
| Solar | HELIOS H500, 600 kWp ground array |
| Transfer | PULSE P1000, ≤ 10 ms |
| Reserve | 400 kWh held for the cold store |
| Control | Solaris™ EMS, reads roof PV and genset |
| Footprint | ≈ 150 m² yard + ≈ 0.9 ha array |
Why one A2000 and an arrayFull year at FY2027/28 prices · indicative turnkey cost · NPV at 12 %
| Option | Rating | NMD after | Cycles / yr | Gross saving | Payback | NPV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 × A2000, no solar | 1 MW / 2.1 MWh | 1 250 kVA | 366 | R2.1 m | 4.5 yrs | R8 m |
| 1 × A2000 + HELIOS ◆ | 1 MW / 2.1 MWh | 1 250 kVA | 372 | R3.9 m | 3.7 yrs | R19 m |
| 2 × A2000 + HELIOS | 2 MW / 4.2 MWh | 1 250 kVA | 261 | R4.9 m | 4.2 yrs | R22 m |
| 3 × A2000 + HELIOS | 3 MW / 6.3 MWh | 1 250 kVA | 185 | R5.0 m | 5.3 yrs | R15 m |
Without solar the battery pays slowly: Ruraflex’s off-season spread is thin. The array nearly doubles the saving. A second A2000 adds R1.0 m a year but cycles less, since one already covers both peaks; it is the phase-two step. ◆ Selected.
11 · How it runs
Sun by day,
stored for the peaks.
Solaris empties the battery through both peak windows, refills it at midday from the array and tops it up off-peak, never above a 1 150 kW ceiling and never below the cold store’s reserve.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
Gold: solar from the new array, delivered to site or stored. Cyan: energy the battery supplies, so the pack-house does not buy it. Grey: energy bought above the old draw to recharge, at off-peak or standard prices. The lower strip is battery power (±1 MW) and the state of charge; gold below the line is the sun charging it.
372Equivalent full cycles a year
699MWhDelivered from the battery
902MWhNew solar, through HELIOS
99.9%Of all solar used on site
12 · The bill
R3.9 m a year,
from four lines.
The array and the battery earn about the same share: solar replaces energy outright, storage moves the rest out of the peak. A lower notified demand and a better power factor add the remainder.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
| Value stream | How it is earned | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Peak energy shifted | Peak kWh bought at off-peak and standard prices instead, net of 12 % losses | R1.65 m |
| Solar through HELIOS | 902 MWh a year from the new array, used on site or stored for the peaks | R1.83 m |
| Notified demand | NMD renewed at 1 250 kVA: generation and network capacity charges | R0.35 m |
| Power factor | PCS holds 0.97 at the meter; the high-season reactive charge falls away | R0.08 m |
| Total | R3.91 m |
Bills are rebuilt line by line from the Ruraflex schedule (Ru12N, ≥ 500 V and ≤ 22 kV, transmission zone 1). The notified-demand saving starts in year two, once the reduction is accepted at renewal. Avoided diesel and protected fruit are not counted.
13 · Fifteen years
Less than five years
to pay back. Then it saves.
The grower buys the plant turnkey and we run it. The saving rises with the tariff and eases as the cells and modules age; O&M is the only cost after day one.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
<5yrsSimple payback
30%Project IRR
19R mNPV at 12 %
5.9×The investment, returned
Even the worst single case leaves an NPV of R16 m.
On the cell maker’s measured curve at 1.02 cycles a day. The peak-shifting saving is cut in step with it; solar loses 0.5 % a year.
Indicative ownership termsFinal terms in the site proposal
| Structure | Turnkey supply, install and commissioning |
| Ownership | The grower, from commissioning |
| O&M | 15-year service agreement, AMPROTEQ |
| Availability | ≥ 97 %, measured monthly |
| Capacity | Tested yearly against the measured curve |
| Augmentation | None needed in the term |
| Monitoring | Solaris, 24 / 7, alarms to the farm office |
| Alternative | Service agreement: fixed monthly fee |
14 · Resilience & delivery
When the feeder trips,
the cold store holds.
PULSE opens in half a cycle and the A2000 takes the cold-store bus. HELIOS keeps charging from the array; the genset starts only if the battery runs low.
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
The packing lines stop and the roof inverters trip. The cold rooms, pre-cooling and degreening run on as an island, on stored energy and the sun with no genset; inside the window the dashed line is that board alone. The cost: most of that evening’s peak shift.
26Feeder trips a year, modelled
64 → 14hGenset hours a year
4.7k litresDiesel avoided a year
26 → 0Compressor trips a year
Risks we carry, and how
| Array approval | Lodged at order; no export, to NRS 097-2-1 |
| Tariff changes | Solaris re-optimises to the new clock |
| Cell ageing | Measured curve; both peaks still covered in year 15 |
| Fire | Clean-agent suppression; firebreak at the array |
Illustrative case on a composite site; not a client project and not an offer. Modelled with Eskom’s Schedule of Standard Prices 2026/27 (Ruraflex, ≥ 500 V and ≤ 22 kV, zone 1), PVGIS (SARAH3) yield for Tzaneen and APEX A2000, HELIOS H500 and PULSE P1000 ratings. The outage pattern, escalation beyond 2027/28, the installed cost and all site data are assumptions.
15 · Questions
Asked by agriculture
buyers.
Does storage pay on a rural tariff?
Not always on tariff savings alone: outside the high season the gap between peak and off-peak prices is small. Paired with solar and a diesel bill it often does. The load study tells you which side of the line your farm is on.
Should the irrigation pumps run on the battery?
Pumps that can be moved off-peak usually should be, on a timer; the battery carries the loads that cannot move. The load study shows which is which.
Can it run with our generator?
Yes. Solaris dispatches the generator as one resource among several and runs it only when the battery reserve calls for it.
Related solutions
How the value
is made.
The agriculture pack.
Two documents,
one decision.
The brief is the four-page case for storage and solar on a farm’s own board. The case study runs the numbers on a modelled citrus pack-house and cold store on a 22 kV rural line, half-hour by half-hour, on Eskom’s 2026/27 Ruraflex tariff.
Sector briefAMP-SB-AGR · Rev 1.0
Battery storage for agriculture
<5yrsSimple payback
75%Less energy bought in peak
53%Of the energy saving from sun
Inside
Download the sector brief
- 01Where the money is, and who it is for
- 02The system: APEX A2000, HELIOS H500, PULSE P1000 and the measured ageing curve
- 03Feeder down: the farm as its own island
- 04The return
Case studyAMP-CS-AGR · Rev 1.0
Taking a citrus pack-house out of the peak
Illustrative case · composite site · not a client project
R3.5mOff the bill in year one
30%Project IRR over 15 years
64 → 14hGenset hours a year
Inside
Download the case study
- 01The site
- 02The load
- 03The plant
- 04How it runs
- 05The bill
- 06Fifteen years
- 07Resilience & delivery
Figures in both documents are modelled on Eskom’s 2026/27 Ruraflex tariff, PVGIS solar yield and indicative costs. A site proposal replaces every one with numbers from your own data.
Next step
Start with your meter data.
Twelve months of interval data, your tariff schedule and your notified maximum demand are enough for a first sizing and an indicative capex, within five working days, at no cost.