Hybrid & Off-Grid Power Systems
Cut the diesel bill and the fuel convoy without losing a single hour of availability.
Typical size
From 10 kWp to several MWp of PV with matched storage and generator control (indicative)
Indicative timeline
Indicative: 2–4 weeks for load audit, simulation and design; 6–14 weeks for supply, remote-site mobilisation, installation and commissioning. Where the site has no grid connection at all there is no utility approval on the critical path, which usually makes off-grid projects faster than grid-tied ones.
Where there is no grid, or the grid is far enough away that a connection costs more than generating on site, a PV-plus-storage-plus-generator hybrid is usually the lowest-cost answer. CoHub supplies the PV array, the bidirectional inverters, the battery bank, the controller and the generator interface, clears it into the UAE and manages installation and commissioning through licensed contracting partners, delivering a system that runs unattended and reports its fuel savings in numbers you can audit.
Who it is for
- Remote construction sites, project camps and worker accommodation running on temporary diesel supply
- Telecom towers, weather masts, pipeline valve stations and other unmanned installations
- Desert farms, livestock stations and camel facilities beyond the distribution network
- Resorts, desert camps and remote industrial units where generator noise and fuel logistics are operational burdens
What the package covers
- Site visit and load audit: measured or logged consumption, peak and surge loads, seasonal pattern and criticality ranking
- Fuel-consumption baseline from delivery records, then hybrid simulation showing modelled diesel displacement
- System architecture, single-line design and control philosophy issued by a licensed consultant on the project
- Supply of modules, bidirectional inverters and chargers, battery bank, controller, generator interface and protection
- Freight, marine insurance, UAE customs clearance and inland delivery to remote sites including desert access planning
- Ground or roof mounting, installation, cabling, earthing and generator interlock by licensed contracting partners
- Commissioning, load testing, black-start verification and remote-monitoring configuration over cellular or satellite link
- Operator training, O&M and cleaning schedule and a spare-parts kit held on site for a remote-location response time
What you end up holding
- Load audit and hybrid simulation report with modelled fuel displacement and generator run-hour reduction (indicative)
- As-built single-line diagram, control and interlock description and the generator interface schedule
- Commissioning and load-test record including black-start and generator-transfer verification
- Remote-monitoring handover: portal access, alarm matrix and escalation contacts
- Operation and maintenance manual written for a non-specialist site team, plus the training record
- Consolidated warranty pack and the on-site spare-parts register
Indicative parameters
Typical values for a UAE site. Your figures come from the survey and the yield simulation.
- Architecture
- AC-coupled, DC-coupled or mixed, chosen on load profile, distance and future expansion (typical)
- Typical diesel displacement
- Commonly 40–80% of annual fuel depending on load shape and storage sizing (indicative, not guaranteed)
- Storage
- LFP battery bank sized for night load plus surge headroom; active cooling for 50°C-plus ambient
- Generator control
- Auto start/stop on state of charge and load, with minimum run time and loading floor to protect the engine
- Environmental protection
- IP65/IP66 enclosures, dust-sealed cabinets, filtered ventilation and sand-resistant cable entries
- Monitoring
- Cellular or satellite telemetry with alarm push, because nobody should drive two hours to read a display
- Indicative specific yield
- 1,600–1,900 kWh/kWp/year, though an off-grid array is often intentionally oversized for winter (indicative)
Typical values for a UAE site. Your figures come from the survey and the yield simulation.
The real cost of a diesel kilowatt-hour
Site teams tend to price diesel generation at the fuel price, which understates it substantially. The true figure includes delivery to a remote location, losses and pilferage, filters and oil, engine overhauls driven by run hours, downtime when a set fails, and the standing cost of a generator that spends much of its life lightly loaded, which is the condition engines like least. A hybrid attacks all of those at once by letting the PV and battery carry the base load while the generator runs only when it is genuinely needed, and then at a healthy loading. Typical modelled diesel displacement for UAE sites sits in the 40–80% range depending on load shape and how much storage is bought, and the honest version of that number comes from your own fuel delivery records, not a brochure.
Sizing for the worst week, not the average month
An off-grid system has no grid to hide behind, so it is designed around the least favourable conditions rather than the annual average. That means winter irradiance and short December days, a run of dusty or overcast mornings, and the surge current of the largest motor on site starting against a loaded system. The design therefore sets three things independently: array size for winter energy, battery capacity for the night and the bad-weather margin, and inverter power for the peak and surge. Where a generator is retained, it is sized to cover the true worst case and the control system is tuned to start it early enough to protect the battery rather than late enough to impress a simulation. Load management is part of the design too: deferrable loads such as pumping or ice-making are scheduled into the solar window.
Built for dust, heat and being left alone
Remote installations fail for unglamorous reasons: a blocked ventilation filter, a cabinet that was never sealed properly, a connector crimped in the wrong tool, a fan that stopped and nobody saw the alarm. Specification for this environment means IP65 or IP66 enclosures with genuinely sealed cable entries, filtered and serviceable ventilation, shaded electronics rather than cabinets baking in the sun, and connectors of a single make properly crimped so no galvanic pair is created at a joint. Earthing and surge protection deserve particular attention because a remote array is often the tallest metallic object for some distance. Above all the system must report: cellular or satellite telemetry with pushed alarms means a fault becomes a planned visit rather than a discovery made when the site goes dark.
Temporary sites deserve permanent thinking
Construction camps and project accommodation are treated as temporary and then run for three or four years on rented generators, which is long enough for a hybrid to pay back comfortably. The design answer is modularity: skid-mounted or containerised plant, ground-screw or ballasted mounting instead of concrete, and a layout that can be demounted and redeployed to the next site. Because there is no grid connection, there is no utility approval on the critical path either, which typically makes these projects faster to deliver than an equivalent grid-tied installation. What still applies is the licensed-work rule: the electrical installation is executed and certified by a licensed contracting partner, and where the camp later connects to a utility supply the interface is handled by an enrolled contractor.
One supply contract, measured results
CoHub supplies the complete package — modules, mounting, bidirectional inverters, battery bank, controller, generator interface, protection and monitoring — carries the supply contract, handles freight, marine insurance, UAE customs clearance and inland delivery to the site, and manages the installation programme through licensed contracting partners. Commissioning includes a documented load test and a black-start verification, so the handover proves the system behaves under real conditions rather than on paper. Monitoring is configured before handover with an alarm matrix and named escalation contacts, and the O&M scope states cleaning frequency and response times explicitly, because on a remote site an unstated response time means whenever someone is passing.
Equipment we source for this
A shortlist, not a fixed specification. Availability in the UAE, warranty cover in this territory and acceptance by your utility are all confirmed per project before anything is quoted — some of these makes are supported here more fully than others, and each brand page says which.
Manufacturer names are used to describe equipment CoHub supplies on UAE projects. CoHub does not claim to be an authorised distributor or agent of any manufacturer listed here.
Questions on this solution
Can we remove the diesel generator entirely?
Sometimes, but it is usually not the cheapest answer. Going fully solar-plus-storage means sizing for the worst consecutive bad-weather days, which multiplies the battery and array. Keeping a right-sized generator as a rarely used backstop is often much cheaper for the same reliability. The right question is not whether the generator disappears, but how few hours a year it needs to run.
What happens on a dusty or overcast week?
That case is designed for explicitly. The battery carries a defined number of autonomy hours and the controller starts the generator on state of charge before the bank is stressed, at a loading level that is healthy for the engine. Dust is handled by the cleaning schedule in the O&M contract and by monitoring that shows yield falling before anyone notices it in the fuel bill.
Can the system move when the project moves?
Yes, if it is designed for it from the outset. Skid or container-mounted power equipment, ground screws or ballast instead of concrete foundations, and pre-terminated cabling make relocation a planned operation rather than a salvage job. Tell us at design stage if redeployment is likely; retrofitting mobility into a system built on cast foundations is expensive.
Do we need utility approval for an off-grid system?
A genuinely islanded system with no connection to a utility network does not go through the grid-connection approval route, which is one reason these projects move faster. The electrical installation must still be executed and certified by a licensed contracting partner and comply with the applicable installation standards and any authority requirements for the site. If the location is later connected to a utility supply, a parallel-operation approval becomes necessary and is handled by an enrolled contractor.
Start with your last electricity bill
Send it with the site address and we will come back with a sizing, a bill of materials and a survey date.
Request a quotation