The challenge
Frozen fish cannot tolerate a power gap. With grid supply intermittent and diesel the default for cold storage on the coast, refrigeration was the largest and least predictable operating cost — and every generator failure put a full store of product at risk. Salt air also shortens the life of ordinary electrical equipment.
What we built
- A 10-tonne containerised cold store with 150 mm insulated panels, holding −18 to −25 °C.
- A ~46 kWp solar array carrying the daytime refrigeration load and pre-cooling the store while the sun is strongest.
- A ~153 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery carrying the full overnight load — 12 hours at 60–70% of daytime demand.
- Three-phase 400 V / 230 V, 50 Hz hybrid inverter with high-surge rating for compressor starts.
- Coastal-grade (C5) corrosion-rated enclosures for the Atlantic environment.
- IoT temperature and output monitoring with alarms.
Delivery
The complete system shipped in a single 40-foot container from FBE's supply chain, with local haulage, offloading and installation handled by FBE's Mauritania partner team. Because the container ships around 70% full, the remaining space carried the customer's other goods at no extra freight cost. Order-to-operational: 10–14 weeks.
The result
- Refrigeration runs with no diesel — solar by day, battery by night.
- A continuous, logged cold chain at −25 °C that the customer can show buyers.
- Fixed, predictable energy cost in place of fuel deliveries and generator repairs.
- A reference site for FBE's coastal cold storage package, now offered to fish exporters in Lagos, Freetown and Ghana.