SIPOS Aktorik, a manufacturer and global supplier of electric actuators, applied its specialist skills in solar solutions to address water flow requirements for a fountain system at a Parisian Palace.
The Palace of St. Cloud, which is managed by the Chateau of Versailles, displays its fountains at pre-determined times via a water system based entirely on gravity-driven flow. The design challenge faced was to provide simple control for the fountain system’s water valve without a local power supply.
SIPOS, which provides valve automation technology for traditional process control installations in the water industry, is adept at providing innovative solutions for out-of-the-ordinary applications. The company resolved the fountain control conundrum with a turnkey SIPOS 5 Solar solution incorporating a simple clock timer.
All the components – including solar cell, charge controller, batteries, actuator and control cabinet – were supplied by SIPOS, providing automated power control without an external power supply. Therefore, the single-phase system with integrated inverter could be mounted some 200 m away from the actuator to be powered – this minimised aesthetic impact at the historic site.
With integral frequency converter technology, SIPOS 5 actuators are ideally suited to solar applications as they feature low starting and running currents whilst maintaining output torque across a broad voltage range.
