Building Solar Power Units for Scientists

BELARE engineers Guus Luppens and Johan De Muylder have been hard at work building mobile solar-powered devices to provide scientists working in the field with renewable energy to power their equipment. They've built both 1.5 m high mobile solar power units to provide energy to scientific equipment. They've also converted a large container unit with solar panels and mounted it on runners to it can be towed and used to power larger scientific equipment in the field (and even provide energy to power a stove or a coffee maker).  The solar-powered container unit has already been deployed to the field where Swiss researchers will take ice radar measurements, while two of the small mobile solar power units will provide energy to a relay antenna at Vesthaugen Nunatak to communicate with the new Perseus Airstrip.

Here you can see the assembly and deployment of some of the first completed devices.