Power System

The power system consists mainly of three elements: the battery stack, the solar panels, and the charge controller. Meer Instruments originally built the system for Flare Genesis.
Of the old system we are still using a refurbished and modified version of the original charge controller. For SBI-2 we have acquired a new type of solar cells from Sun Power Corp. The model A300 cells are back metalized, they have an efficiency of 21.5% which is much better than the 16% efficiency of the cells flown with Flare Genesis.

For the Antarctic flight we have estimated that the instrument will require on average 250W of power and at peak times up to 600W. We will have four solar panels, two on each side of the gondola. Each panel is made of 65 cells. The estimated total power production capacity is about 700W. The panels were fabricated by SunCat Solar

For energy storage and to supply enough electricity during transient peak times we will use two ODYSSEY SLI PC1700 batteries connected in series. They are 12 Volts sealed lead acid batteries with 65 Ampere hour capacity and an operating temperature range from -40°C to +80°C. By connecting them in series we will have a bus voltage of 24 Volts.

The charge controller is the intermediate connection between the solar panels and the batteries. It maintains optimum battery charge by activating/deactivating between one to all four solar panels depending on the system power requirements and state of charge of the batteries. It also acts as the main switch to deliver power to all the sub-systems. It is possible to command the power switch ON or OFF from the ground via discrete commands through the SIP.