Daily power outages lasting several hours are commonplace in India’s federal state Tamil Nadu. For this reason, cotton mill Alpine Knits located in Palladam, had been using diesel gensets to ensure a reliable power supply for their production site – and simply accepted the exorbitant operation expenses resulting from the fuel consumption of the gensets.

To reduce their energy bill, the cotton mill operators decided to install a PV system on the rooftop of their factory workshop – which started producing inexpensive energy in June 2013. With the SMA Fuel Save Solution, the PV system and local diesel gensets are combined to work as a PV diesel hybrid system that operates reliably even when the grid fails.

The Fuel Save Controller acts as the interface between the PV system and diesel generators and coordinates their operation according to the site’s power demand. During peak production hours, the PV system provides approximately 60 percent of the mill’s total power demand, regardless of utility-grid availability, thereby reducing the mill’s use of diesel-generated electricity and associated fuel costs.