This year, ARRAY was honored to share our knowledge and leadership in modeling solar tracker impact on energy production, highlighted by a key presentation from one of our Senior Engineering Managers, Kendra Conrad, on the “Energy Impact of Different Solar Tracker Wind Stow Strategies.”

Kendra’s talk on wind-stow energy loss drew a crowd and kicked off some great discussions. She introduced ARRAY’s proprietary modeling methodology and showed how ARRAY DuraTrack® trackers’ mechanical passive wind stow solution yields minimal energy losses—peaking at just 0.14% across 12 diverse locations. In contrast, sensor-based active stow strategies exhibited significantly higher losses, with a maximum of 4.2% for the same sites.

The enthusiastic feedback and questions that followed underscored the importance of this innovative work. Kendra’s insights not only illuminated the superior efficiency of our passive wind stow solution but also highlighted the substantial advantages it offers in optimizing energy retention.

So, to continue the momentum, here are two questions we tackled and three major insights we took away from PVPMC 2024.

ARRAY Senior Engineering Manager, Kendra Conrad, presenting at PVPMC 2024.

2 Burning Questions from PVPMC 2024

1. Is ARRAY’s Mechanical Passive Stow a New Feature?

At PVPMC 2024, we fielded a lot of questions about the advantages of our DuraTrack tracker, especially about its passive mechanically activated stow feature. Kendra explained how ARRAY’s technology has evolved continuously to meet the high demands of today’s solar infrastructures, ensuring top-notch performance and longevity. Our patented, safe, passive wind stow technology is a fundamental component of the latest DuraTrack version and future iterations.

What sets ARRAY’s wind stow technology apart?

Unlike traditional sensor-based active stow methods, which rely on the control system functioning during adverse weather and can cause significant energy loss, our technology offers a more reliable solution. It is designed to protect your equipment from wind damage without sacrificing energy output. This innovation is a true game changer for our customers, aiming to enhance both equipment reliability and energy yield.

2. How Do Individual Rows Stow in the Linked Architecture?

A focal point of Kendra’s talk was the innovative mechanics behind ARRAY’s linked architecture, which is crucial for reliable solar tracker operation in adverse conditions. So, what exactly is a linked architecture, and how can individual rows still stow during high wind events?

Our linked architecture enables multiple rows of solar panel trackers to rotate together as a single unit. This design can be especially cost-efficient and reliable for large utility-scale solar installations. By orienting a large number of solar panels with just a few motors and controllers, our architecture strives to maximize efficiency and minimize costs.

Having a strategy to deal with high wind events is critical to solar tracker design. Our DuraTrack trackers feature a torque-limiting clutch on every row, which mechanically activates during high winds. The clutch automatically stows the rows where the mechanical thresholds have been exceeded to the nearest maximum tilt.

In this optimal position, mechanical stops on every pile transfer the wind load directly to the ground, ensuring maximum protection. Stowed rows act as wind barriers for the rows behind them, allowing the unstowed rows to continue tracking normally even during high winds. This can drastically reduce downtime and energy loss, as only a small fraction of the rows need to stow.

Additionally, this stow position is ideal for hail protection, linking seamlessly with our ARRAY SmarTrack Hail Alert Response to offer superior defense against hail damage.

3 Key Takeaways from PVPMC 2024

1. Acknowledgment of ARRAY’s Collaboration with Labs and Universities

Our commitment to advancing solar tracker technology by collaborating with labs and universities garnered positive mentions multiple times during the conference.

A few mentions that stood out were:

• Jim Crimmins of CFV Labs proposed using ARRAY DuraTrack trackers in their outdoor yard to build physical twins of utility installations. These reference arrays will aid in degradation monitoring. CFV Labs, an ISO-accredited solar test laboratory in New Mexico, has worked with us for over a decade. In 2019, we built a DuraTrack installation to study tracker design’s impact on bifacial systems.
• Dr. Ana Dyreson of Michigan Technological University shared results on the different snow-shedding strategies they have tested using ARRAY DuraTrack trackers at the Michigan Solar RTC. The Michigan Solar RTC is part of the DOE-funded Regional Testing Center program. ARRAY had built a DuraTrack installation at the Michigan RTC back in 2022 to demonstrate the reliability of our trackers in high-snow areas.

These mentions reflect the collaborative relationships that we have built over years, working together with industrial and academic partners to advance the solar tracker technology.

2. Heightened Interest in Hail Mitigation Strategies

The robust dialogues around hail mitigation strategies underscored the industry’s urgency in addressing weather-related challenges, with ARRAY at the forefront of developing risk-mitigation technologies. Even talks that did not mention hail—including Kendra’s—received questions related to hail. Many conversations focused on the massive damage that a solar farm in Texas suffered in March earlier this year.

So, what’s ARRAY’s strategy for handling the unpredictability of hailstorms?

ARRAY offers two primary solutions to help mitigate the risk of hail at your site:

• Manual Hail Stow Solution: This allows site operators to stow all DuraTrack trackers to a safe position (maximum tilt) with a single click on the user interface or with a manual switch on-site.
• ARRAY SmarTrack Hail Alert Response System: This system automatically triggers the safe-stowing action when hail is forecasted for a site, removing potential human factors from the hail mitigation plan.

These solutions ensure your site is protected against hail damage, enhancing the resilience and longevity of your solar installations.

3. Growing Concern Over Equipment Availability

The conference discussions highlighted the critical importance of equipment availability in accurate energy modeling—a factor now recognized as essential for understanding and resolving underperformance of utility PV power plants. Participants discussed how to correctly incorporate equipment availability in the energy models to improve the accuracy of P50 and P90 values used for project development and financing.

At ARRAY, we set ourselves apart in tracker availability through innovative features that enhance uptime and energy production. The simplicity of our DuraTrack linked architecture, which includes significantly fewer parts per MW than competitor tracker products, results in higher uptime. Plus, DuraTrack’s mechanical passive wind mitigation limits the frequency of stow events, which can result in higher uptime and minimize wind-stow energy losses.

PVPMC 2024 provided a dynamic platform for ARRAY to showcase our dedication to pushing the boundaries of solar tracker technology. We hope the industry adopts the modeling methodology Kendra presented to accurately include wind-stow energy losses in energy production estimates.

We invite industry professionals to engage with us further, share insights, and discuss future collaborations. For more information on our technology and services, or to schedule a detailed discussion, please visit our contact page.

The post Innovations and Insights: ARRAY at PVPMC 2024 appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

Traditionally, tools that help operators, investors, developers, and EPCs assess the long-term profitability and total cost of ownership of such projects were hard to come by or nonexistent. Now, there are proven ways to forecast and implement strategies geared toward the lowest levelized cost of energy (LCOE).

Getting out of the traditional, CapEx-focused mindset is key. If the majority of a project’s focus is aimed at reducing upfront spending, key questions are left unanswered. What if, post-warranty, a tracker fails? What impact do operating expenses have on long-term profitability?

The history of utility-scale PV solar development is littered with projects that took this CapEx focus and placed much less emphasis on operating expenditure. This has led to higher than predicted operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, decreased plant efficiency, hamstrung disaster recovery resiliency, and lowered profitability.

The selection of the right partners – and the right single-axis solar tracker – can eliminate those negative outcomes.

How Leading Single-Axis Trackers Save PV Plant Projects Money in the Long Run

There’s a common misconception surrounding high-quality single-axis solar trackers like the ARRAY DuraTrack® HZ v3–because they lead the industry in quality and performance, they must also lead the industry in expense, particularly capital expenditure.

In fact, the opposite is true.

ARRAY retained RINA Consulting to act as an independent engineer and perform a lifetime cost comparative assessment of popular single-axis tracker architectures.

RINA leveraged its independently developed PVTrax® cost modeling tool to prepare a case study for a 100 MW sample project.

The assessment found that:

• Net Present Value (NPV) increases over $1.3 million for asset owners using ARRAY trackers
• ARRAY’s centralized architecture lowers LCOE over the plant’s lifetime
• Total lifetime OpEx is reduced by 42% compared to modeled distributed row architectures
• Energy output is elevated compared to trackers using distributed architectures, and
• ARRAY trackers exhibit 7% lower lifetime tracker costs than other trackers modeled

This OpEx improvement is critical for both aging PV plants and new construction. For aging plants, repowering and retrofitting strategies can help raise asset performance and offset higher O&M costs, rising insurance premiums from an inability to withstand damage from extreme weather events, and diminishing power production.

It also empowers new plant projects to more effectively keep pace with lifespan expectations surrounding projects in the current PV plant landscape.

Meeting Lifespan Expectations and Moving Beyond Warranties

This long-term mindset is important moving forward, as definitions of the useful life of plants have now exceeded common warranty periods.

Jose Luis Galo, RINA’s solar technical lead, commented on this shift toward longer-term expectations in the consultant’s report.

“Solar assets are now expected to run beyond 30 years,” he said. “As the PV industry faces increased pressure from lower PPA contracts, stakeholders are increasing their focus on lifetime costs.”

In short, that means that PV plant projects are entering into an arena where long-term estimates regarding how design-phase choices will impact uptime, risk, O&M costs, warranty considerations and plant profitability are front and center. They can make or break a project’s viability.

Single-axis trackers are especially important in these assessments as, despite typically accounting for 12 – 15% of a modern PV plant project’s capital expenditure, they can have a much greater impact on long-term operations and maintenance, reliability, and profitability than that percentage suggests.

Trackers are literally the “foundation” of the plant, and tracker failures, particularly in extreme weather, will negatively impair other components like modules.

Inverters are central points of failure, as they consolidate a large chunk of DC power, but they can be addressed with a focused recovery effort since the quantity across the plant is low. New generation modules represent a major capital expense but have shown an ever-increasing resiliency.

Mounting systems, specifically single-axis trackers, have an even higher material count than modules across the site when all of the required parts and pieces are considered, yet they do not have as much operational history. This means they exhibit the largest risk of asset underperformance – and that they should receive commitment and attention to match during the design phase.

Contact ARRAY Technologies Today

The history of utility-scale PV solar development points to an overwhelming focus on a project’s capital expenditure, with operating expenditure, although analyzed, a distant second.

This has had a dramatic long-term profitability influence on CapEx-focused projects in terms of higher than predicted O&M costs, plant efficiency, plant disaster recovery, weather resiliency, and, ultimately, profitability.

ARRAY is committed to acting as a trusted partner early in the life of a PV plant project to ensure that its design-phase choices and CapEx dollars support the modern mission of extending productive lifespans of these projects to 35 years or more.

To learn more about how ARRAY’s single-axis trackers contribute to that mission, download the RINA report today.

The post After the Warranties: The Importance of OpEx Over CapEx for Utility-Scale PV Solar appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

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.

In choosing how to fight back, PV plants have two core options among single-axis solar trackers–active stow and passive response. 

Active Stow Is a Half Measure in Extreme Weather Risk Mitigation 

In crafting a more robust strategy for dealing with extreme weather, particularly during construction of PV plants, active stow is near useless. 

The built-in weather mitigation technology in many single-axis trackers can’t be enabled until construction is either complete or nearly so, meaning there are crucial months of construction where these trackers are left completely exposed. This also exposes the construction timeline of the plant, itself, to tremendous setbacks. 

And active stow is to blame. 

“Trackers that rely solely on active stow risk mitigation need so many things to be connected for that mitigation to take place–anemometers, wireless networks, power supplies, charge controllers, batteries and motors, etc.–and there’s vulnerability to wind and hail during the entire time construction is underway,” said Jon Sharp, Vice President of Strategic Product Marketing at ARRAY Technologies. “It comes down to a simple question–how long can you tolerate that risk exposure? Can lenders, financiers, and insurers tolerate it? The answer is likely no.” 

Active stow also buckles in the face of combined wind and hail events, which the National Weather Service says are common. In positioning themselves at high angles to avoid hail damage, active stow-reliant trackers then can’t handle extreme wind, greatly upping the risk of critical damage. 

“The process of constructing and operating a utility-scale PV solar plant comes down to a constant equation of risk versus reward,” Sharp said. “Relying on active stow extreme weather mitigation tips the scale in favor of risk.” 

There’s a better way. 

Patented and Proven Passive Wind Mitigation Delivers Heightened Results 

Passive wind mitigation is a much more effective tool for utility-scale PV plant construction, empowering single-axis trackers to better respond to extreme weather events, particularly when they present a combination of wind and hail. 

With solutions like ARRAY Technologies’ patented passive, mechanical wind mitigation, the trackers’ weather mitigation is active from assembly of the first row, not the entire plant. 

“At ARRAY, we have a philosophy of engineered simplicity. That literally means drastically fewer parts, to the tune of 167 times fewer parts, on average, than a tracker with active stow response. That means no waiting for the installation of thousands of components to get the benefits of a weather risk mitigation strategy,” Sharp said. “Having fewer components also provides clear benefits in uptime and production over the life of a plant. There’s simply fewer things to fail.” 

Passive wind mitigation offers a fully automatic, failure-free system–that means no sensors or electricity to rely on. When severe weather arrives, the system simply engages, automatically rotating modules to the safest position for high winds. However, if a rapid response is warranted, software empowers authorized operators to control the entire solar plant to engage that response. 

Building On a Foundation of Thorough Extreme Weather Study 

The biggest challenge in PV plant weather risk mitigation comes from those events that produce both extreme wind and hail–and the NOAA recorded more than 4,600 such events in 2018, alone. 

When trackers are placed in a flat orientation to avoid the damaging effects of wind, hail is presented with a bigger target. When more vertical positions are used to mitigate hail damage, wind has a field day. ARRAY has worked alongside aerodynamic engineering firms and leveraged three decades of experience to help deliver more thoughtful, coherent weather risk mitigation strategies. 

Passive risk mitigation is better equipped to handle these dangerous combinations of wind and hail, bringing PV plants greater peace of mind and more flexible options. The ARRAY DuraTrack® HZ v3 has been designed and thoroughly tested to withstand some of the harshest conditions on the planet, and it’s the pinnacle of ARRAY’s commitment to fully integrated, fully automatic wind-load mitigation. 

“Array is always committed to genuine partnerships that help each plant project make the most of its footprint and technology,” Sharp said. “We’ve put a lot of thoughtful design into the DuraTrack to help plants develop a more well-rounded approach to weather risk mitigation, but our primary concern is always ensuring you have the information and tools you need to maximize production, uptime and ROI. We share that vision.” 

To learn more about how ARRAY is leading the way in weather risk mitigation, contact us today. 

The post All Hail the DuraTrack: Best-in-Class Extreme Weather Mitigation with ARRAY Technologies  appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

As this “claiming” of ideal sites continues, developers will see a rise in project placement in less-than-optimal locations that require more design forethought and, nearly always, some amount of land grading to optimize power yield.

Grading to overcome challenging site terrain can bring oversized expenses and time investment, potentially hamstringing projects before they even begin.

With thoughtful design and leveraging single-axis trackers with high tolerances for challenging, undulating site terrain, excessive grading can be avoided.

Over-Grading Costs You Money and Time

Site grading adds a costly and time-consuming step to an already complex timeline. Worse, “over-grading,” so to speak, can result from choosing a sub-optimal tracker design that can unnecessarily drive-up project costs.

The time spent grading may even overshadow hard costs, particularly when research needs to be completed regarding the potential environmental impact of site alteration.

A recent study from the University of Michigan of select solar projects in California put some numbers to the average grading needs of a utility-scale PV plant project. Of the six projects studied, none needed fewer than 1,000,000 cubic yards of grading work completed, and the highest required upward of 8,000,000 cubic yards.

1,000,000 cubic yards of soil is the equivalent of 972,000 tons. 8,000,000 cubic yards of soil is approximately 7,776,000 tons. Project Managers faced with a civil engineering effort of this scale can do the math in their heads on the high cost of site grading.

To put one project’s grading effort into a fantastic visual, the University of Michigan study details that if one project’s substantial pre-build earthwork “were placed onto a football field, the mound of soil would be over a mile in height.”

Let’s look at a real-world project example. A recent ARRAY Technologies project spotlights the value a tracker with high terrain flexibility can offer. A decentralized tracker was estimated by civil engineers to require the following grading requirements for their tracker:

• Cut – 637,000 Cubic Yards
• Fill – 251,000 Cubic Yards
• Net – 386,000 Cubic Yards of Cut

ARRAY’s centralized and flexibly linked DuraTrack single-axis tracker was able to eliminate a vast amount of this grading requirement. Here was the estimate of the grading effort from ARRAY’s engineers, using DuraTrack:

• Cut – 243,000 Cubic Yards
• Fill – 114,000 Cubic Yards
• Net – 129,000 Cubic Yards of Cut

The decentralized tracker required 160% more grading. This additional effort would have required 25,700 additional dump truck trips to move the cut on site or to a distant disposal site.

The reason? DuraTrack’s extreme terrain flexibility allows for a more precise analysis of how the plant’s energy production will be affected by grading­­ – calculating when “over-grading” is unnecessary.

The bottom line is this – while some amount of grading is almost certainly unavoidable, adding more grading than necessary to a project significantly affects the project budget and timeline.

Terrain Flexible Single-Axis Trackers Eliminate the Grading Roadblock

When assessing a potential utility-scale PV site, it is essential to get your tracker vendor engaged as early as possible, as the foundation of power plant tracker selection is key to adapting to terrain challenges.

By using flexible, single-axis solar trackers designed to handle challenging site terrain, utility-scale PV plants can optimize power production while mitigating the expensive process of grading a site to produce more ideal conditions.

This translates directly into profitability for PV plants, and terrain flexibility empowers developers to more easily optimize layouts to increase energy production without significant disruption.

ARRAY Technologies DuraTrack^® HZ v3 delivers terrain flexibility and optimized production yield in several ways:

• Power density is optimized by eliminating “module dead spaces” caused by motors and bearings, minimizing the gap between modules and allowing for an increase in the area where panels can be mounted.
• Linked, articulated drivelines accommodate different site slopes without requiring grading to make a site flatter.
• Engineered simplicity – fewer moving parts – reduces overall component failure risk and increases reliability over the 30+ year lifespan of a modern PV power plant, lowering overall cost of ownership.

DuraTrack^® is flexible enough to handle uneven terrain, eliminating the need for grading, helping contractors, engineers, EPCs, and asset owners increase project profitability and long-term value.

Combining DuraTrack with ARRAY’s software solution, SmarTrack  aids in navigating complex terrain, allowing for optimal backtracking, low-light module adjustments, and advanced machine learning related to row height differences and uneven site terrain.

Flexibly Linked Single-axis Solar Trackers: The Best of Both Worlds

Improved utility-scale PV power plant design, and improved bankability, results from finding the right balance of equipment and grading. When that balance is struck, even non-ideal sites can produce tremendous results.

Finding the sweet spot where both grading and foundation design are optimized is, in some cases, a million-dollar question – and it is one that is often made without proper due diligence, based on industry myths, or using site data from previous projects that may be inappropriate.

An often-misunderstood concept is that centralized solar tracking solutions aren’t flexible or able to contour with natural undulations in the land. ARRAY’s elegant tracking solution provides harmony between the flexibly linked single-axis architecture while relying on the natural savings that come from reduced parts when compared to a decentralized tracking solution.

ARRAY engineers help clients optimize a plant design that answers the challenge of finding the right ­– and most cost-effective – balance between tracker layout vs. grading.

How does ARRAY help EPCs and developers answer the grading question? ARRAY trackers offer extremely high tolerances for terrain flexibility. DuraTrack allows for up to 40% grades in the east-west direction and 26% in the north-south direction. Additionally, post reveal heights are, from a design perspective, practically limitless, and typically determined by budget and wind requirements. This flexibility allows project engineers and designers to more accurately optimize tracker and grading costs.

To learn more about how we can help you optimize your design regardless of how challenging the terrain, contact us today.

The post ARRAY’s Solar Tracker Terrain Flexibility Helps Curb Grading Costs, Optimize PV Plant Projects 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.

Trackers are one of the major inputs of the risk equation. In this final post of our 3-part series on risk mitigation for investors and insurers, we’ll talk about trackers and risk over the long term.

Trackers are integral to lower financial risk

In the past, more conservative investors and insurers have questioned trackers as a possible risk. With using anything that requires mechanical parts to move, there’s always the fear that those parts could cause problems. In which case, there’s more initial cost and disappointing payouts should the trackers fail, diminishing power production and cash flow.

Trackers, like most things in the PV industry, are under constant scrutiny and development. Now it’s widely accepted that a well-built tracker properly installed on a properly designed site will far outperform fixed-tilt sites in levelized cost of energy (LCOE).

As utility site sizes increase and PPA prices fall, the margins for energy production returns tighten. Read more about falling PPA prices in our previous post on market risk assessment.

Large utility-scale sites can’t afford to not have trackers. The repositioning to keep panels capturing light during the critical morning and evening hours may seem incremental, but it adds up. Energy production typically increases 20 to 30% with single-axis trackers.

The benefit of additional energy with trackers can be millions of dollars on average-sized solar sites. Of course, not just any tracker means lower long-term financial risk. Material quality, drive mechanism, ease of install, and maintenance should all be considered.

Why modern trackers are smarter

Machine learning algorithms can now map out PV sites and respond intelligently. This is a huge advantage in real-world settings where tricky terrain, weather variation, and differing module configuration can throw variables into energy output calculations.

The addition of software, such as SmarTrack^TM by ARRAY Technologies, gives trackers an edge that can add up to 5% more production under diffuse light conditions and on challenging terrain.

Across undulating terrain, machine learning can boost the amount of light trackers capture even more by meeting incline percentages with an equal percentage in energy production. For example, production can be increased 1% on a 1% incline, 2% on a 2% incline, etc.

Weighing CAPEX and OPEX of PV sites

The more reliable the components, the lower OPEX costs over time. Lower OPEX is one of the major predictors in a more financially rewarding PV investment. All equipment requires some maintenance over its lifetime but minimizing routine O&M costs as well as break fixes is one of the most impactful financial risk aversion strategies.

The TUV study we referenced in the first post of this series also concluded that durability and ease of repair outweigh upfront equipment costs.  Data is stacking up in favor of investing more CAPEX in quality equipment for lower OPEX and better return over the long run.

Lenders and insurers can also ask developers to provide data using predictive analysis tools like PVsyst or PlantPredict. Of course, as with any data tool, it’s absolutely critical that these software platforms are being used correctly.

Without a thorough knowledge of the software, default inputs can lead to drastically different outcomes from reality. Small variations between actual site conditions and the selected information can alter energy estimations considerably, leading to disappointed stake holders.

The use of legacy data sets including on-the-ground knowledge of site idiosyncrasies, similar plants performance in similar locations, geographical historical yield data along with predictive analysis should all be part of the decision making.

With the appropriate investment of both time and money into CAPEX upfront, long-term issues ranging from sites design flaws to component failure reduces OPEX over time and increases functionality and financial returns.

Site design is foundational to success

No other “fixes” make up for poor design. The integrity of the site as a whole comes from a solid foundation. Tenants of good design include:

1. Don’t simply “work with” your site terrain. Take advantage of it. Use it as a way to improve system performance. You can do this by capitalizing on any terrain already facing the sun and choosing a tracker with high tolerances that can handle the slopes and topography. This is how your design aligns with your objective to capture the most sun.
2. Choose quality components that will have the most uptime over the lifetime of the plant. This includes hardware built to withstand extreme weather such as wind and hail. Trackers should be robust enough to last 30 years or more and have a field-proven track record of doing so.
3. Add machine learning software to your toolset. Modern trackers benefit from the integration smart solutions, which learns the optimal path and pacing to capture more light.
4. Prioritizing plant resiliency and uptime is perhaps more important than any other strategy including software for optimizing energy output. If you have optimizing software, but your equipment is not working, what good will the software do? This applies to all components across the site from trackers to modules to inverters, etc.

Choose the appropriate PV modules for your site. Specifying modules that can withstand shading, which can be unavoidable on some sites, is often a basic tenant of good site design.

ARRAY trackers vetted, tested, and reliable

A feature of ARRAY Technologies trackers that makes them such a touchstone in the industry is the centralized drive mechanism. This patented, innovative design drastically reduces parts count and makes ARRAY trackers more robust and reliable.

We’ve developed our tracking system using solid hardware and fewer parts. Specifically, ARRAY trackers have over 160 times fewer components than trackers with a decentralized architecture. Without extra parts prone to failure such as monitors, sensors, and batteries, we’ve drastically reduced weaknesses and cut the risk of profit-draining downtime and expensive insurance claims due to damage. Also, they’re easier and faster to install.

ARRAY specializes in trackers easily used on all types of terrain. Our trackers are used in projects with EPCs, developers, and site owners all over the world. To date, more than 22+ GW of ARRAY Technologies trackers are deployed worldwide.

We test extensively through modeling and testing in the field, as well as through third-party engineer evaluation. We do this to make sure the results are valid and not the product of a company echo-chamber.

No single solution for minimal risk

Again, no one product or method can deliver a strong solar production site. There are several pieces to a solid overall risk mitigation strategy.

Investors see better returns on capital with an awareness of all these elements and by insisting on minimizing risk through quality. Similarly, insurers can develop policies with confidence knowing this comprehensive perspective is followed.

It’s no surprise, but the best way to ensure this awareness and quality is to perform due diligence. We hope this blog series was an informative look at these topics, and we encourage you to dig further into the available data.

A good place to read more on this topic is from RINA, who includes more than two years’ worth of research on this topic in a recently released report. It’s a thorough assessment of CAPEX versus OPEX and minimizing downtime for lower risk and higher returns.

Download our white paper “Wind and Hail Risk Mitigation and the Firming of Commercial Insurance Markets for Utility-Scale Solar Power Plants” to learn more about our patented passive weather risk mitigation technology and how we can help reduce your weather risk. 

The post Part 3: Why PV Trackers Are a Critical Component of a Risk Profile for Utility-Scale PV Solar Lenders and Insurers appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

A safety issue in utility-scale PV projects that’s NOT often discussed is extreme weather risk to a partially completed power plant. Typically, the build phase for utility-scale plants is three months or longer. During that time, plant components are pieced together to an exacting workflow by skilled laborers to ensure a safe, efficient, and error-free build.

But there are still risks.

Take tracker systems for example. Depending on the design, many single-axis trackers can’t enable built-in weather risk mitigation technology until AFTER construction is almost complete or until the project is commissioned and operational. That efficient workflow to ensure safety and speed up project delivery with decentralized trackers can leave them exposed during the crucial construction months, especially to wind and hail events. As anemometers, wireless networks, power supplies, charge controllers, batteries, and motors wait to be connected, there’s a vulnerability to wind and hail.

Active stow response is the culprit here. Trackers that rely on this weather risk strategy leave structures and installed modules at risk waiting for thousands of parts to be connected and powered.

If your site encounters wind and hail during that three-month or longer build phase, the risk of damage pre-commissioning is real. And insurers and lenders are becoming more sensitive to this risk. The recent hardening of commercial insurance markets in the U.S. points this out.

If you are constructing with a tracker system that relies on active stow to mitigate wind and hail events, how does waiting for the tracker’s active stow activation affect your risk tolerance?

Are you willing to tolerate that risk exposure for 60 days? 90 days?

How do you mitigate this vulnerability until the active stow is functional?

Are lenders, financiers, or insurers willing to tolerate this build phase risk?

ARRAY Technologies answers these questions with a patented passive response technology.

Our passive mechanical wind mitigation is fully functional beginning with the proper assembly of the FIRST row. ARRAY Technologies’ philosophy of engineered simplicity means no waiting for the installation of literally thousands of more components. Requiring 167 fewer parts on average than a tracker with an active stow response, ARRAY’s design also reduces risk by vastly reducing components that over time will have a failure rate that’s proven to reduce uptime and production over the 30+ year expected lifecycle of a modern PV power plant.

ARRAY engineers spend a lot time thinking about wind speed, hail response, and eliminating the probability of wind and hail damage to our trackers, both during construction and after commissioning.

Download our white paper “Wind and Hail Risk Mitigation and the Firming of Commercial Insurance Markets for Utility-Scale Solar Power Plants”  to learn more about our patented passive weather risk mitigation technology and how we can help reduce your weather risk.

The post What’s Your Risk Tolerance During Construction of a Utility-Scale PV Solar Power Plant: Active Stow vs. Passive Mitigation appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

ARRAY Technologies’ SmarTrack energy optimization software platform is a new offering available to ensure asset owners are using the best tracking strategy possible to optimize energy production.

Optimizing yield with innovative machine learning algorithms, SmarTrack minimizes row-to-row shading and increases production in diffuse light.

Backtracking: An Imperfect Initial Solution

One of the clearest obstacles to efficient energy harvesting is row-to-row shading. Simply put, as trackers allow modules to follow the sun, panel-on-panel shading can occur during early morning and late afternoon hours.

The shading of one cell on a module can cause a loss of production from that entire panel, not just the shaded area. This means that the overall dip in energy production during row-to-row shading can be significant.

Traditional backtracking solves this problem––to an extent.

Backtracking, which has been in use for over two decades, refers to a tracking strategy where modules move to shallower angles during the “shoulders” of production hours to avoid row-to-row shading––the morning and evening hours of energy harvest. This strategy increases energy production during those early morning and late afternoon shoulder hours.

A backtracking strategy can exhibit issues in terms of practicality. On an ideal site where row height is entirely equal and the slope of the site’s terrain is perfectly flat, backtracking can be very successful. However, these ideal sites rarely exist in today’s utility-scale PV landscape, and conservative or inefficient backtracking on less-than-perfect sites can lead to serious production loss. And as utility-scale solar power production popularity increases, more sites will be built on challenging, undulating terrain and in regions of lower insolation. So backtracking efficiency in these sites becomes more important for profitability.

“In the real word, site design is never perfect,” said Dr. Kyumin Lee, ARRAY Technologies Director of Product Innovation. “Our research indicates that conventional, conservative backtracking doesn’t work for most sites.”

To account for row height variation and terrain grade, Lee says traditional backtracking models had “one knob to turn” in the form of ground coverage ratio. By adjusting this parameter, the traditional tracking algorithm can be forced to backtrack more aggressively to avoid row-to-row shading.

“Tweaking the conventionally accepted backtracking model can help, but it’s not the optimal solution,” Lee says.

How SmarTrack Elevates Backtracking and Diffuse Light Strategies

With these practical concerns in mind, ARRAY Technologies developed SmarTrack.

With SmarTrack, PV solar plants can take row height variation and undulating terrain into account, ensuring that row-to-row shading is minimized and that a site isn’t losing valuable production by excessive backtracking.

“With SmarTrack, we account for the site slope,” Lee says. “You are not wasting sunlight. It’s counter-intuitive, but the revelation is that we’re always backtracking the minimum amount to maximize the power production. The angle is fundamentally different from what you can calculate with a conventional model. We are using a backtracking model, leveraging machine learning, that’s more reflective of typical real-world limitations at a site.”

Even a slight extension in the sun angle when backtracking begins – say, from 64 degrees to 67 degrees under certain site conditions – can have a significant impact on broadening the “shoulders” of energy production at a site.

“You cannot just walk away from backtracking, because if you were to just ignore backtracking altogether, you’d lose too much energy when the sun is low,” Lee says. “But you do not want to backtrack more or longer than you absolutely have to. The idea of SmarTrack is to produce more energy by backtracking less.”

Utilizing Machine Learning for Simple, Efficient Implementation

One of the primary advantages of the model SmarTrack uses to “learn” the optimal tracking strategy for a site is that it isn’t only applicable to the period when the learning is completed; rather, the parameters learned by the model are valid for the lifetime of the plant, making overall operations simpler.

The learning process is also extremely fast, Lee said, often taking a matter of days to complete depending on weather conditions during SmarTrack’s learning process.

Kendra Conrad, ARRAY Technologies Principal Engineer and a veteran solar industry professional, said SmarTrack offers unparalleled benefits in terms of cost as well.

In particular, while a manual commissioning optimization can indeed get a significantly improved result, this process is both time-consuming and costly.

“You can actually optimize energy production relatively well when manually commissioning a power plant,” Conrad said. “However, it’s a very slow process. It takes personnel, it takes time, and you’re not going to get as good a result – even if you do it perfectly – compared to SmarTrack. The fundamental equation of traditional backtracking does not allow you to factor in the row-to-row height variation or slope.”

SmarTrack has been validated by independent engineering firms like DNV GL to continue to prove its effectiveness and help calculate project bankability.

Contact us to learn more about optimizing production with more intelligent backtracking and smarter diffuse light strategies, or to get a quote for your plant.

The post Backtracking and Diffuse Light Strategies with SmarTrack from ARRAY Technologies appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.

The plant has created hundreds of local jobs and become a beacon in the march toward innovation and sustainability, promising to generate approximately 1.2 TW/h of solar energy annually. To put it in perspective, that’s enough to power more than 100,000 U.S. homes. And it’s driven by ARRAY Technologies.

Enel Green Power, the operator of the Roadrunner solar farm, selected ARRAY DuraTrack® single-axis solar trackers for their utility-scale photovoltaic solar plant, helping the plant’s incredible number of bifacial solar panels live up to their expansive power-producing potential.

More About Roadrunner

When complete, the Roadrunner solar farm will sprawl over an incredible 2,770 acres and have an oversized impact on our shared environment by avoiding the emission of over 800,000 tons of CO2 per year.

And the energy produced at Roadrunner is already set to be leveraged by some true titans of the food service and cleaning product industries, with Mondelez International signing on for a 12-year, 65MW power purchase agreement and The Clorox Company for a 12-year, 70MW power purchase agreement.

For Mondelez, this energy will be enough to produce half of the Oreos produced in the U.S. annually, and Clorox’s PPA represents around half of the company’s 100% renewable energy goal, which it originally hoped to achieve by 2025.

The project is also driving growth “at home,” with Enel Green creating local jobs, making investments in local education and emergency response initiatives, and generating approximately $60 million in new tax revenue over the life of the project.

The Upton County, Texas project was also integrated into an operating wind project area, meaning that the land is contributing to the world’s clean energy efforts in more ways than one. This integration is a model for the future of such projects.

Add it all up, and Roadrunner has done something extraordinary, converting a landscape being used for very little into an integral part of the world’s push toward sustainable, renewable energy.

“This milestone emphasizes the scale of Enel Green Power’s capability to develop, build and operate projects across diverse geographies and technologies in the U.S.,” said Georgios Papadimitriou, Head of Enel Green Power North America. “We continue to aggressively pursue opportunities for growth in North America, capitalizing on strong C&I demand for sustainable power and accelerating the transition to a carbon-free economy.”

Why ARRAY?

With so much potential for Roadrunner’s bifacial solar modules to power that march toward true sustainability, Enel Green needed solar trackers to provide proven performance and real, consistent results.

Enter the ARRAY DuraTrack® single-axis solar tracker.

DuraTrack is the result of three decades of field-tested design improvements, allowing it to fulfill ARRAY’s mission of bringing the solar industry innovations that power real advancements by becoming the most durable, reliable tracking system under the sun.

Featuring streamlined installation thanks to a single-bolt module clamp and forgiving tolerances, the DuraTrack doesn’t sacrifice performance, offering flexibly linked architecture that maximizes power density and promoting uptime with an innovative use of far fewer components than other options and a failure-free wind management system.

Put it all together, and the DuraTrack delivers the industry’s highest power density, cutting-edge terrain adaptability, greater reliability and absolutely zero scheduled maintenance.

For massive projects like the Roadrunner solar farm, that translates into:

• 99.996% Uptime
• 7% Lower LCOE
• 31% Lower Lifetime O&M

These savings and the performance guaranteed by DuraTrack trackers are integral to fulfilling Roadrunner’s mission to not only lead the way toward a more sustainable future but invest in the local community and ensure the operation is as future-proof and scalable as possible.

It’s simple – when you choose to leverage the best and most innovative technology available, you ensure you’re ready for whatever lies ahead.

Contact ARRAY Today

ARRAY has been manufacturing solar projects in Albuquerque, New Mexico since 1989 and has supplied more than 10 gigawatts to commercial and utility-scale projects around the globe, displaying a proven track record of success as pioneers in the solar power industry.

With a specialized focus on solar trackers, ARRAY has positioned itself as a true partner in efforts to boost return on investment and lower LCOE, and we’re ready to help you do just that.

Contact us to learn more about the DuraTrack single-axis solar tracker or request a quote today.

The post ARRAY Technologies and DuraTrack® at Roadrunner Solar appeared first on ARRAY Technologies.