No grid at all
Remote sites, islands, camps, and communities beyond the last pole. The mini-grid is the utility, so it has to carry every load, every night, without anyone on site to nurse it.
Mini-grids
We design, build and install mini-grids
A mini-grid is a complete, self-contained power system — generation, storage, conversion, distribution and control in one coordinated package. We engineer them, manufacture them in our Seattle shop, and commission them on site. One team from the load study to the day it carries the load.
Design
Load study & sizing
Build
Manufactured in-house
Install
Commissioned on site
Support
Remote via VRM
Generation and storage on one DC bus, inverted to AC, distributed to the loads that matter most.
Where mini-grids go
When the grid isn't there, isn't enough, or isn't reliable
The same architecture solves three different problems, and the sizing changes completely depending on which one you have.
Weak or unreliable grid
A connection exists but sags, drops, or can't supply the peak. The mini-grid rides through outages and covers the peaks the service can't, so the site stops planning around the utility.
Expensive grid
Demand charges, diesel deliveries, or both. Here the mini-grid is a financial instrument — it shifts energy in time and shaves peaks, and the payback is on the bill rather than in resilience.
How we build them
Manufactured in the shop, not improvised on site
Field wiring in a hot enclosure at the end of a long drive is how mistakes happen. We build and test the system on the bench first, then the site work becomes placement, interconnection and commissioning.
Four stages, every one of them signed off before the next begins.
- Load study first. We measure or model what the site actually draws — including the starting surge of the biggest motor, which is what sizes the inverter far more often than the average load does
- Single-line drawing. Every conductor, breaker, fuse and earth bond on paper and approved before anything is ordered
- Built and wired in our shop. Enclosure, busbars, distribution, and every Victron component mounted and terminated on the bench where the light is good and the tools are to hand
- Bench tested under load. The system is powered, loaded, and run through its transfer and charge behaviour before it ever leaves — faults found here cost hours, not a return trip
- Installed and commissioned on site. Placement, interconnection, earthing, and a documented commissioning run with the numbers recorded
- Handed over with documentation. As-built drawings, a labelled panel, and a plain-language runbook for whoever is on site
How it behaves
A day on a well-sized mini-grid
Solar carries the day and refills the bank. The battery carries the evening. The generator stays off — and when it does run, it runs at a sensible load point instead of idling all night.
Illustrative profile. Your actual curves depend on the site, the season and the load — which is exactly what the load study establishes.
In the field
Where the thing actually lives
A mini-grid earns its keep after dark, when the array is asleep and the bank is carrying the whole site.
Illustrative — enclosure format, array size and distribution all follow the site.
The platform
The Victron stack we build with
Every mini-grid we make is assembled from the same open, serviceable, field-proven component set — no proprietary lock-in, and parts you can still get in five years.
MultiPlus-II & Quattro
The inverter/chargers at the centre of the system. They invert from the bank, charge from any source, transfer between them without dropping the load, and stack in parallel and across three phases as the site grows. The Quattro takes two AC inputs, so grid and generator can both land without an external changeover.
Dynamic ESS
Victron's energy-management layer. It forecasts load and solar yield, watches prices where a tariff applies, and decides moment to moment whether to charge, discharge, hold or import — so the system chases the cheapest available energy without anyone touching it.
SmartSolar MPPT
Maximum-power-point tracking that gets the most out of the array across changing light and temperature — from compact controllers to high-voltage, multi-tracker MPPT RS units for large 48V banks. Sized against the array's cold-weather open-circuit voltage, not just its nameplate.
Cerbo GX & VRM
The brain and the window. The Cerbo coordinates every component and logs the whole system; the VRM portal puts that data — and remote firmware updates and dispatch tuning — in front of us from anywhere. On sites that need real logic rather than just visibility, we add Node-RED flows on the same device.
Plus the rest of the build
Lynx distribution & busbars
LiFePO₄ banks with BMS integration
Class-T & NH fusing
Generator auto start/stop
Earthing & bonding
Enclosure & thermal management
Remote uplink (cellular or wifi)
Third-party battery banks are welcome — supporting non-Victron cells is something we do deliberately. See our integration work.
Get started
Tell us about the site
Where it is, what has to run, what you have for generation today, and what happens now when the power goes away. That is enough for us to come back with an architecture and a budget range.
Designed and manufactured in Seattle, WA.