Darcom Energy, a Romanian company active for 15 years in the renewable energy sector, which last year had business of over 100 million lei, records a significant increase in orders for energy storage systems, largely determined by frequent power outages and voltage fluctuations caused by the heat wave.

These systems protect household appliances from sudden voltage drops, can be installed in a few hours and allow the operation of a plant disconnected from the electricity distribution network for approximately 24 hours.

“This year’s July heat wave will go down in history not only for the days with temperatures above 40 °C, but also for the nights that brought numerous absolute records. In just four days, the absolute maximum temperature for the month was equaled or exceeded at 23 weather stations, and weather records from 88 years ago were also broken. During such heatwave periods, power outages become more frequent and longer. These interruptions cause discomfort both in homes and in factories or offices. Fortunately, there are effective solutions to ensure continuity of electricity supply, from a few hours to a few days, regardless of whether you have photovoltaic panels installed or not,” said Cornel Eftenoiu, founder and CEO of Darcom Energy.

For consumers without photovoltaic panels, energy storage systems are a practical solution. These solutions, which connect to the power grid and function like a UPS, store energy when the power grid is functional and release it when needed, thus ensuring continuity of power supply. In the last year, the installation of these systems has increased significantly, from about 100 systems installed last year to several hundred requests in the last two months. The cost of installing such a system, capable of supporting the energy supply of a home or office for at least one hour, is approximately 2,000 euros. Another advantage of these systems is that they protect electrical equipment against voltage fluctuations, which can damage the devices and lead to the loss of their warranty.

For consumers who already own a PV system, Darcom Energy provides scalable systems that can be added to the existing system. These systems allow the energy produced by the solar panels to be stored for later use and provide intelligent energy management. Prices for these systems start at €7,000 and can be scaled up to the size of a container, capable of powering an entire factory for a day, with storage capacity from 3 kWh to several hundred kWh.

“These solutions come fully configured and installation is plug and play and takes no more than a few hours. The fact that they are compact and come in a metal cabinet requires no dedicated storage space and installation time is minimal. These systems help in intelligent power management and surge protection in addition to continuous power supply. A very important aspect is that the transition from the network to storage is done in less than a second, which means that the supply and operation of electrical equipment is not interrupted,” added Cornel Eftenoiu.

Darcom Energy also provides hybrid photovoltaic systems, which operate continuously even when the power grid is not available. These continuous operation systems can take power from the photovoltaic panels even during power outages, thus ensuring a constant supply of energy and reducing dependence on the power grid. Although the costs for a hybrid photovoltaic system are higher, they are amortized by the savings achieved and the continuity of the energy supply.