Australia’s industrial facilities are often separated by distance. Across oil and gas, resources, processing and infrastructure projects, relatively small electrical loads can be located hundreds of metres, or sometimes considerably further, from an established power supply. Providing power to remote equipment can therefore require significantly more infrastructure than the load itself might suggest.
IECEx solar panels offer an alternative way of generating power locally where those loads are located within hazardous areas. Solar power offers an obvious alternative in many Australian locations. However, where equipment is installed within a hazardous area, a conventional solar panel may not be suitable.
The Warom BSP Series Explosion-Proof Solar Panel, now available from Inatex, provides an IECEx certified photovoltaic solution designed specifically for installation in hazardous areas.
Solar Lighting Is the Starting Point
Warom originally developed the BSP Series as part of an explosion-protected solar lighting system. The concept combines solar generation, charge control, battery storage and explosion-protected LED lighting to create a standalone lighting system without requiring an external electrical supply. Warom’s proposed configurations include lighting loads from 60 W to 120 W, with systems designed around extended night-time operation and battery autonomy during periods of reduced solar generation.
For remote industrial facilities, this has some obvious potential. Roadways, access areas and isolated plant locations may require lighting despite being some distance from established electrical infrastructure. A suitably engineered standalone solar lighting system could avoid the cost and complexity of extending conventional power infrastructure purely to supply those loads.
Can Solar Panels Be Installed in Hazardous Areas?
Solar panels can potentially be installed within hazardous areas where the equipment is appropriately designed and certified for the applicable hazardous-area classification. A conventional photovoltaic panel should not simply be assumed suitable because it generates relatively low DC voltages. Equipment installed within a classified area needs to be assessed against the applicable hazardous-area requirements. The BSP Series addresses this issue by providing an IECEx certified photovoltaic panel specifically designed for hazardous-area installation.
But lighting may only be the beginning.
IECEx Solar Panels Beyond Hazardous Area Lighting
The BSP is fundamentally an IECEx certified solar panel designed for installation within a classified hazardous area. That creates some interesting possibilities for the Australian market. Remote industrial sites can contain relatively low-power equipment such as instrumentation, telemetry, communications and monitoring systems. Depending on the load, location and overall system design, local solar generation could provide an alternative to extending power infrastructure over significant distances.
Potential applications could therefore extend beyond lighting to include:
- remote instrumentation and monitoring
- telemetry and RTU installations
- communications equipment
- environmental or process monitoring
- remote detection and alarm equipment
- other suitable DC-powered equipment.
The suitability of any of these applications would depend on the complete electrical design, power requirements and hazardous-area classification. The important distinction is that the BSP provides engineers with an IECEx certified photovoltaic building block around which these types of remote power solutions may potentially be developed.
BSP IECEx Explosion-Proof Solar Panel
The BSP Series uses high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cells together with high-transmittance tempered glass. Warom uses pulse welding and vacuum-laminated encapsulation intended to provide reliability and service life under harsh environmental conditions.
The range covers 50 W to 410 W, with DC18V and DC36V configurations available depending on panel capacity.
Key characteristics include IECEx certification for gas and dust hazardous areas, suitability for Zones 1, 2, 21 and 22, IP66 ingress protection, an aluminium alloy enclosure, toughened glass and stainless-steel exposed fasteners. The specified ambient temperature range is -40°C to +60°C.
Available configurations are:
| Output | BSP panel ratings |
|---|---|
| DC18V | 50 W, 70 W, 105 W, 140 W, 205 W |
| DC36V | 110 W, 140 W, 205 W, 280 W, 350 W, 380 W, 410 W |
This range gives designers considerable flexibility when matching photovoltaic generation capacity to the requirements of a particular remote load.
What About Battery Storage?
Solar generation is only one part of a standalone power system. Applications requiring operation outside daylight hours, or continuity through periods of poor solar generation, will generally require energy storage together with appropriate charge control, protection and distribution.
Warom is developing complementary equipment for this purpose, including the BDY Series Explosion-Proof Power Supply Unit.
The proposed BDY range uses valve-regulated sealed lead-acid batteries within a stainless-steel explosion-protected enclosure and includes 12 V and 24 V configurations with capacities from 20 Ah through to 250 Ah. The enclosure incorporates an explosion-proof vent valve intended to discharge hydrogen generated by the batteries. IECEx certification of the BDY Series is currently in progress, and it is hoped that certification will be achieved later in 2026. Once the complementary equipment has completed certification, the combination could provide a useful platform for developing standalone hazardous-area power solutions.
An Interesting Development for Australian Hazardous Areas
The immediate application for the BSP is relatively easy to see: standalone solar lighting in hazardous areas.
What makes the product more interesting is what may come next.
Australia combines extensive industrial and resources infrastructure, large distances and abundant solar energy. In that environment, the ability to generate power locally within a hazardous area could have applications considerably broader than lighting alone. Rather than asking only “Where can we install a solar light?”, the more interesting engineering question may be: “What remote hazardous-area equipment could we power without extending the site electrical supply to it?”
The BSP Series provides a new component for considering that question. Inatex can provide technical information on the BSP Series and work with customers evaluating its suitability for hazardous-area solar lighting and other remote power applications.
Contact Inatex to discuss a potential application or request BSP technical data.
