{"id":30588,"date":"2025-02-28T10:38:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T08:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.victronenergy.com\/blog\/?p=30588"},"modified":"2026-03-05T17:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T15:52:09","slug":"solar-plant-makes-oxygen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.victronenergy.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/28\/solar-plant-makes-oxygen\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Plant makes oxygen"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Francis Hospital in Zambia\u2019s Eastern Province has been providing healthcare for 76 years. With over 500 beds, 700 staff and over 20,000 admissions a year the busy hospital is committed to providing essential medical care in spite of the local challenges – the most serious of which is electricity outages from an unreliable power grid.<\/p>\n

Help is at hand – a recently completed solar energy system now provides twenty-four hour reliable power, without cost, allowing the hospital to generate its own medical grade oxygen from a three-phase supply. Life supporting oxygen is abundantly available and the cost savings can be re-invested in further patient care.<\/p>\n

Using an INMATEC POC 8200 oxygen generator, ambient air is filtered by a zeolite molecular sieve which separates oxygen molecules from nitrogen molecules. The unit is capable of producing up to 14 cubic meters of 95% pure medical-grade oxygen per hour which is stored in a 500ltr pressure vessel at 140 bar using an 18.5kW Kaeser rotary screw compressor. There’s an additional high pressure cylinder filling system which is powered by a 1.1kW compressor.

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The power system, which was installed by Yougo Limited<\/a> with sponsorship from the Friends of St. Francis Katete Charitable Trust, has 140 Trina Solar panels rated at 345Wp – providing 48kWp. The system was built into a container which offers a number of advantages – most of the wiring can be completed at Yougo’s own premises; it is easy to transport; there is minimum disruption to patients and staff at the time of installation, and by being locked into a container unit the system is more secure.<\/p>\n

The solar panels are ground-mounted, close-by.<\/p>\n

When the sun shines, two 25kW SMA Sunny Tripower PV inverters provide a three-phase energy supply. Surplus energy from the panels is stored in a Pylontech US3000 battery bank of 140kWh total capacity. Power harvest is controlled by three 15kVA\/48V Quattro<\/a> inverter\/chargers – which also provide three-phase power from battery storage at all other times.<\/p>\n

The system also uses two MPPT 250\/100<\/a>\u00a0 SmartSolar charge controllers – which are capable of 5.8kW operation with as much as 99% efficiency.<\/p>\n

The system is harmonised by a Cerbo GX<\/a>\u00a0 – a powerful processor which has a range of ports for hardware connections and provides data communication between all system components including third-party manufactured devices. The user interface for monitoring and on site engineering access is provided via a GX Touch 50<\/a> touch screen device. The Cerbo GX also allows engineers to programme the system remotely, via Victron’s free-to-use internet portal Victron Remote Management VRM.<\/a>

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