Installation and Soft Cost Reduction for Horizontal Single Axis Trackers (Stage II)
Innovative PV tracker for sloped and rolling terrain
Nevados Engineering, Inc.
Recipient
San Francisco, CA
Recipient Location
11th
Senate District
17th
Assembly District
$999,822
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
The project team completed substantial work on the All-Terrain Tracker and the product is now commercially ready. However, further work will continue to bring down the costs, expand the product capability, and expand the products offered. The version of the product that was ready at the end of the project includes a single axis tracker that can fit to flat, sloped, and rolling terrain on slopes of up to 37% grade and with changes in slope along the length of the row of up to 17% grade at each bearing assembly. The team has also developed software products for optimum operation and control and remote monitoring. These products are commercially ready to enable sale, manufacturing, and deployment of the tracker. Nevados has already sold and installed the new tracker system at several customer sites.
The Issue
The solar industry has historically focused on flat land for project installations. However, flat land is not widely available and is often expensive and dedicated to other uses like housing, roads, farming, etc. While flat land is not necessary for solar installations, solar mounting systems have historically been designed for flat land applications. This limits potential installation sites, often requires substantial earth work to prepare a site for solar power plant installation, and can result in substantial environmental degradation during the process.
Project Innovation
This project is demonstrating a novel single axis solar PV tracking system suitable for sloped and rolling terrain. This will help solar developers build projects on lands closer to load centers and interconnection points that typically would not be considered, creating more site options. The construction costs are reduced by eliminating the need for grading soil and environmental mitigation costs can be cut as well. The new tracker was developed through a DOE award and a full-scale system is under testing at a rolling terrain near Davis, CA. The Energy Commission grant is funding improvements and testing of the various tracker components in an effort to find cost-cutting opportunities to update the product design and optimize it for full-scale manufacturing.
Project Benefits
This project focused on creating products to facilitate the move from flat land installation sites to non-flat land sites to accelerate the growth of solar installations leading the state to a 100% clean energy future.
Affordability
Installing the new solar tracking system on sloped, rough, and rolling terrain, will eliminate the need for soil grading typically necessary for solar installations, resulting in 3-10% total project cost reductions. This also inc
Economic Development
Through further development, testing and certifying of equipment, pilot manufacturing and business case analysis that will lead to anticipated manufacturing cost to $0.128/W or less, the technology will be competitive in the indu
Environmental Sustainability
The new tracker removes the need to grade top-soil, helping preserve the environment at the site. As soil grading is diminished, millions of gallons of water usage currently sprayed on dry disturbed soil to mitigate dust at const
Key Project Members
Yezin Taha
Subrecipients
Multiple Subcontractors
