Because the ARRAY DuraTrack® HZ v3 single-axis solar tracker leverages a centralized design with rows linked by drivelines, it’s often thought of as a less-than-perfect solution for challenging sites, such as those with rolling hills or irregular site boundaries. 

However, the DuraTrack®, particularly when combined with ARRAY’s SmarTrack energy yield optimization software platform, can bring tremendous terrain flexibility and production gains to these projects. 

How DuraTrack Optimizes Production, Regardless of Terrain 

ARRAY DuraTrack® trackers offer extremely high tolerances for terrain flexibility. DuraTrack® allows for up to 40° of combined angle in the east-west direction and up to 26% grades in the north-south direction.  

“For example, if the east-west slope is four degrees and the skew of the block is 25 degrees, then your combined angle will be 29 degrees,” said Anubhav Tandon, ARRAY Senior Principal Engineer. “If there is no skew to your rows, then the east-west slope can go all the way up to 40 degrees.” 

ARRAY trackers also allow for essentially limitless post-reveal heights, meaning that budget and wind requirements can be used to determine heights without worry about whether the tracker solution can be designed to meet those conditions. 

Finally, DuraTrack®’s articulated drivelines also empower designers to work within unconventional site boundaries, further promoting flexibility in the face of challenging conditions. 

These factors add up to proven benefits, including: 

• Optimized power density through the elimination of module “dead spaces” caused by motors and bearings, which empowers designers to minimize the gap between modules and increase the overall area where panels can be mounted. 
• Accommodation of challenging, unusual sites without the need for excessive grading, minimizing initial CAPEX spend. 
• Engineered simplicity – quite literally fewer moving parts—that encourages overall component failure risk and boosts reliability over the decades-long lifespan of a modern solar plant, lowering overall cost of ownership. 

The benefits of leveraging DuraTrack® single-axis trackers are amplified by ARRAY’s SmartTrack software solution, which aids in navigating complex sites to optimize production by allowing for more optimal backtracking, low-light module adjustment and advanced machine learning related to row height differences and uneven terrain. 

Terrain Flexibility in Action in Around the Globe 

Turkish solar developer STC Elektronic partnered with ARRAY to address challenging terrain on a 24MW solar portfolio in the country, which often reserves large, flat sites for agricultural purposes, offering another example of why empowering PV plants to navigate complex geometry is so critical to the future of solar energy. 

“Most of the projects in Turkey come with a demanding slope requirement, as they are being built on hills,” Tandon said. “This makes our tracker a viable option.”

Each one of three sites faced its own unique challenges, including steep or rolling terrain, difficult soil and forested conditions. However, because of the aforementioned articulation and tolerances, DuraTrack® trackers were able to account for natural land contours and extreme slopes.  

A Commitment to Optimal Performance and Lifetime Cost of Ownership 

ARRAY offers a variety of expert engineering and consultation services beginning at the bidding stage, meaning solar projects have access to our expert teams before any formal business relationship has been established.  

ARRAY helps designers, EPCs, owners and more engage in robust slope analysis, helping determine the banding of the site’s slope, exterior row count, row location and locations that allow for rows to be placed on the least challenging terrain.  

ARRAY also offers grading and topographical analysis and competitive comparisons, which often find millions of dollars in savings when compared to less flexible tracking solutions. 

“This analysis can also provide average north-facing slope or south-facing slopes,” Tandon said. “This is very helpful in getting accurate production estimations, as trackers in the northern hemisphere gain more energy if their rows are pointed toward the south and vice versa.” 

ARRAY brings these services to market because we’re committed to helping every solar site optimize production, regardless of whether the site eventually leverages DuraTrack® or not. ARRAY’s engineering services help reduce grading and steel costs, avoid related environmental regulation challenges, and optimize both production and the site’s balance between CAPEX and OPEX. Often, a slightly more significant capital investment leads to a lower total cost of ownership. 

To learn more, click here to watch a video highlighting DuraTrack’s ability to overcome challenging terrain or contact ARRAY today. 

The post Achieving Greater Terrain Flexibility Across Challenging PV Solar Sites with DuraTrack appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

With 650W+ modules now available, it appears that large module formats are here to stay, particularly when manufacturers can create them in comparable time to smaller modules.

This is promising in terms of pure module power – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t implications to navigate. How will trackers accommodate these large format modules? How will inverter choices and system layouts change? Will new construction codes crop up to inform design? How will insurers react? And on top of all that, there are structural and mechanical engineering considerations, especially in high-wind environments. 

This all adds up to a clear need for industry collaboration between developers, module manufacturers and mounting system providers to work toward a common goal of efficient standardization. This collaboration will help prevent significant cost increases in balance of system, installation and soft costs that could negate the benefits of technological progress.

Breaking Down the Site-Wide Costs Associated with Larger Solar Modules

Module size alterations can potentially lead to improved cost per watt for PV plants, lower labor costs associated with installation, and elevated row-by-row production. They also have the potential, though, to introduce elevated mounting system costs, including trackers.

Because of this, informed design decisions during the planning phase can help avoid these higher costs and lead to better optimization of entire systems and sites.

For example, increasing structural designs to accommodate higher loads levied by larger modules could potentially interfere with the power generation capacity of the back side of panels, and more support structure, in general, could result in higher freight costs, extended installation times, and more.

That means that weighing the potential benefits in terms of production against these costs is critical, as is thoroughly assessing the risks associated with larger modules in terms of resilience in the face of high winds and heavy snow loading.

Collaboration as the Way Forward in Navigating Increasing Module Sizes

As it stands, it will be difficult for the solar energy industry to continue producing larger and larger modules without seeing corresponding increases in balance of plant and insurance costs.

Other considerations are also important, such as the aforementioned impact of snow loading due to the sheer surface area increases found in larger modules and the changing impacts of shading, torque, wind, and more.

Dave Sharratt, VP of International Business Development at ARRAY mentions that “There could be some unintended consequences if all the players in the utility-scale PV ecosystem operate in silos about their advancing technologies. For example, structures that are built for lower wind speeds may not be able to handle larger modules in regions with extreme weather. Also, larger modules logically may require more support structure. This increases installation time, freight and logistics costs, and overall a higher build cost for EPCs. Rigorous analysis past simple OpEx is needed to determine best-in-class components that are compatible to ensure seamless integration and plant resiliency.”  

ARRAY is committed to helping foster the collaboration between developers, module manufacturers, and mounting system providers. This collaboration is critical to avoid unexpected increases in PV plant project costs.

Dr. Mengyuan Li, ARRAY Technologies’ Business Development Director for Asia, stresses that “There’s a positive and increasing trend of accelerating engineering collaboration between module manufacturers and structure providers like ARRAY to standardize design goals to ensure these larger modules don’t simply create additional expenses in the balance of systems or project insurance. Finding the lowest LCOE for investors needs to be a collective effort through the value chain.”

In conducting a study to better understand the relationship between larger PV modules and site-wide costs, ARRAY found:

• Lower module weight leads to longer rows, which can significantly decrease tracker costs across the plant
• Longer modules typically generate more power per unit length along the tracker row. In areas with relatively low wind and snow loads this is often a great solution to reduce tracker cost per Watt. But on sites with relatively high loads the longer module transfers more of these loads to the tracker structure and increases the number of required foundations and weight of module support components
• Larger modules typically generate more power per tracker row, but it may be at the expense of higher costs in the tracker structure and module support components
• Modules with large surface areas and relatively thin frames will require heavier clamp solutions to offset deflection
• Module efficiency is the most direct correlation between module characteristics and reduced tracker costs
• Modules with relatively low power but high efficiency resulted in lower tracker costs
• Output power alone correlates poorly with tracker cost

ARRAY’s engineering experts act as trusted advisors to our clients, helping steer developers and financiers through decisions that require a working knowledge of the quickly evolving trends in utility-scale solar.

ARRAY’s team goes to great lengths to ensure that module support and clamping considerations result in the minimum amount of shading and the ideal distance between module backside and the torque tube, helping optimize site design. This trend is simply one in a long line of advancements and innovations we have seen during our 30+ years of experience in utility-scale solar. Our primary goal continues to be to help each and every developer, EPC, and asset owner achieve the best possible outcome via the most cost-effective and productive solution.

To learn more, contact us today, or download your copy of our recent white paper “Larger PV Modules: Breaking Down Site-Wide Costs” by clicking HERE.

The post Utility-Scale PV Solar Trends: Increasing Power and Module Size appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

Customizing module row length is one tool. It can help PV plant developers, owners, project managers, financial analysts, and EPCs get a clearer picture of how to optimize site use, engage in minimal grading and, most importantly, boost energy yield.

By leveraging a four-string tracker row as opposed to a more traditional three-string row, the overall cost per watt of each individual tracker row can be reduced. Such a configuration may not be possible for every PV plant project, but it can offer an option to more cost-effectively utilize tracker components and reducing overall row count to get the most out of a fixed amount of DC watts for your site.

Extending Module Rows – A More Flexible Design Choice 

By considering the extension and customization of module row lengths early on in a PV plant project, developers can define the most efficient design for a unique site – and the project’s unique budget constraints. It is important to understand the module string size range as early as possible to define the optimal modules per tracker row.

It’s helpful to think of extended row design concepts in terms of a few key metrics. By extending total length, PV plant projects can often also increase modules per post (or more generally meters per post).  This is a key metric used to determine the cost efficiency of a tracker structure design.

Long Row Design Increases Meters per Column while Minimizing Required Components 

In particular, meters per post can be a tremendous measure of efficiency and cost-effectiveness since it indicates how well the tracker structure utilizes foundations and their associated costs. Since foundations are a high-cost component in the total tracker cost stack they are a focus in the design process. And choosing a four-string configuration can typically allow PV plant projects to boost that metric.

Four-string rows also offer more row length for optimizing post location, meaning the tracker designer has more room along the row to find a post position that optimizes the tube span while avoiding interferences with module clamps or tube couplers.

This improved flexibility to optimize column location results in a greater total quantity of maximized spans along the row. And all of these maximized tube spans mean more meters per column, meeting the original design objective.

Further, when you compare a standard 3-string row to a 4-string row you are increasing the module count per row by 33%. Assuming you have a fixed DC capacity, you would reduce your total row count across the PV plant by a similar percentage. Since the motor count per block is fairly independent of row length this results in nearly a 33% increase in the DC power per motor.

There are also a number of components across the row that are required in a fixed count (dampers, gear racks, drivelines, etc.). Reducing the row count by nearly 33% results in an equivalent reduction of these “fixed count” components, and amortizes their cost across more DC power per row.

It’s simple. By customizing module row length, plant designers and planners can flexibly and cost-effectively increase the number of modules and adapt to match both plain terrain and challenging site geometry.

The Benefits of Customizing Module Row Length 

By leveraging custom module row length on a PV plant site, you can decrease overall build time and cost, and, ultimately, increase plant profitability.

By utilizing a more flexible design choice via utilization of longer rows, you can:

• Reduce overall row count, reducing “fixed count” materials and their costs
• Optimize column location to more flexibly locate them, maximize tube span and avoid interferences
• Minimize the meter per column metric and utilize foundations more efficiently
• Reduce motor count and allow them to drive up to 33% more DC MWs
• Create greater power density thanks to fewer, larger motor blocks
• Experience a tracker cost reduction of between 2 and 6% based on unique site characteristics

The Proof Is in the PV Plants 

Don’t just take our word for it. The proof is in the PV plants.

On a recent 700 MWdc project featuring approximately 1,700,000 modules (405 W power) using a row design of approximately 104 modules instead of 81, it was found that:

• Increasing module row length by 23 modules per row resulted in an upfront cost savings of $6.3 million.
• Plant resiliency was increased by eliminating extra components. In this case, more than 300 fewer motors were needed with the final optimized design, reducing the risk of component failure. Fewer motors also means reduced wiring, trenching, and labor expenses. With plants now designed to run over the course of three decades or more, this is critical.
• With help from engineers at ARRAY, the number of modules per foundation, a measure of the supporting posts that go into the ground to support each module row, dropped substantially­­. In this case, almost 20,000 fewer foundations were required, which was estimated to bring a cost savings of $3.9 million without sacrificing structural integrity.
• A surprising project budget savings was produced by the overall number of fasteners required for ARRAY’s DuraTrack when compared to the competition. ARRAY’s innovative single-bolt module clamp required over 3 million fewer fasteners than the competitive offering. This will result in a significant labor cost savings as well.

Check out this Array Webinar Unlocking Utility-Scale Solar Returns with Extended Module Rows from our archives.

Four-string configurations aren’t a “new product” or over-complicated solution – they’re simply a way for ARRAY to help PV plant projects get the most out of our industry-leading DuraTrack® HZ v3 single-axis tracker.

ARRAY is committed to serving as a flexible, trusted advisor to each unique PV plant project to ensure that it achieves the most optimal design and energy yield possible. Our four-string offering is unique, and it gives you additional tools in determining the best course of action for your unique needs and site.

ARRAY’s longer module row solution is about adding another tool to the arsenal of PV plant developers and owners and empowering you to find your ideal solution.

To learn more about how ARRAY Technologies can help you make the most of your site by partnering with you to optimize site design, customize module row length, and use the best software and trackers in the industry, register to attend Unlocking Utility-Scale Solar Returns with Extended Module Rows HERE on March 11, 2021 at 2pm ET / 11am PT.  

The post Optimizing Power Yield for PV Solar Plants by Extending Module Rows appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.