An Australian ‘pop-up solar’ generator that can be transported in a shipping container and is designed to provide instant power for defence forces in the field is being touted as a solution for disaster relief.

Canberra-based ECLIPS Engineering has developed an Australian-made mobile solar energy system which can provide instant power from a shipping container, and can be easily transported.

The pop-up solar units are self-contained within a shipping container.

The 'pop-up' system is able to provide significantly more power than many existing mobile solar generation arrays, it is more easily installed and transported, and can be set up within minutes as a standalone system or joined to an existing network.

Known as the Container Roll Out Solar Systems, or CROSS, the solar generators are able to provide between 2.2 kilowatts and 4.3 kilowatts of power and can be combined with several other units to provide even more electricity.