25 years in the off grid solar industry and I have never seen a solar tracker that hasn't crapped out and failed and become a maintenance nightmare. Solar panels are $.50 a watt and if you want more power just buy some more solar panels! The beauty of a solar panel is that it comes with a 20 year warranty, has no moving parts and it sits in the sun and produces energy while making no noise. Throw away all that beauty by attaching it to an active and moving device that requires maintenance and troubleshooting and has a high propensity of failure. Do everything you can to avoid these things.
The primary principle of the solar tracker is to maximize the amount of energy harvested from a limited space, in these situations "adding more panels" is not an option. Most industrial structures are not designed to support the additional weight of solar - especially if they are placed on one side of the roof structure - add snow and the building collapses. While it may be true that there are a number of badly engineered trackers out there which have chronic maintenance issues, the current state of the industry says otherwise and most of the latest iterations are extremely robust where 120mph winds are the baseline. Coupled with automatic lube and self-calibration, a 30-year operational lifetime is easily achievable. The downside of 2-axis trackers is they can't maintain solar perpendicularity in tropical regions unless they have a backtracking algorithm - but that's almost irrelevant when compared to static installations.
I also was thinking about making a tracker but after doing research it shows max 40% annual increase of electricity production. If no urgency or energy can be stored somewhere for cheap than tracker nearly makes no sense as economics if nowhere. Unless the trackers are very cheap and reliable but this is not the case.
What about the process of cleaning solar panels, and how frequently should it be cleaned, especially is tropical climates with high humidity, dust, mold and mildew?
Having trouble with my solar trackers ,work fine for about 7 months, then trackers quite retracing back to neutral position at night. Called, emailed eco worthy no response back. Anyway suggestions what is going on ? Thanks
Trackers are cool and do maximize power for panels, but I'm with the nay sayers. Panels are cheap. Put them on a building, carport, or shelter for dual use or mount them on the ground.
Lot of people don't want them on their roof and ground mount might give you better mobility? And cheap is a relative term of course. Especially if you aren't going to get any rebates, tax incentives, etc. :)
This is exactly what I wanted to build for many years for except I live in FL where wind speed can reach up to 150mph in that situation I wanted the pole to lay down flat on the ground or a special platform where it will be held securely till the hurricane passes through.
I like the elevation of the structure, keeps regular human hands away and may also be above shadows from smaller trees. If there is some patchy shadow still though, it looks like the panels are connected in series so if one panel gets shaded the whole chain it's on would drop performance. Is there a version with parallel connections in the works ?
What wind speed and gust speed can these handle during SoCal eastern wind conditions up to 70mph? Oh, he said up to 120mph, sound excelente!...though I wonder about repeated wind loadings and material fatigue.
All manufacturers of solar panels will void the warranty if you mount them with wood. It is a terrible idea and you might say that it works but it will stress the solar panel overtime by contraction and expansion and it will cause micro crystalline fractures of the solar cells.
Does anyone know how many 400W panels can be installed on a pole-mount system in areas with potentially 80 mph winds? Are there any companies that manufacture and sell such systems?
No, keep them up super high so that when they fail maintenance and repairs will be an absolute nightmare. There is no such thing as a tracker that doesn't crap out and fail over the years.
Would love to have an elevated ground mount dual axis solar tracking system in the backyard. Would prefer to be able to install, maintain, and service it myself. It would be great if they come in different sizes to holds different number of solar panels so users can choose what they need. How easy or difficult is it to lubricate the bearings once a year?
I'm in favor of solar. I own a 2kWh LFP battery and 3 panels for emergencies. With that said, atmospheric CO2 at 400ppm is totally not a problem. The atmosphere needs more CO2, not less. During the quaternary glaciation atmospheric CO2 fell to .018% of the atmosphere or 180ppm. At .015% or 150ppm plants begin to die. Assuming that the entire globe goes to zero CO2 emmisons, what's the plan if CO2 drops below 150ppm? Do we drill for gas and oil and just burn it off? Again, solar in specific applications are an excellent idea, but scrambling to go solar and wind because of some existential threat is total rubbish. The CO2 scare is a complete and total fraud based on fraudulent computer models. If anyone has been affected by the so called climate crisis please let me know.
Holy shit! Did you go to Donald Trump and Fox News University? Your argument is an absolute pile of crap and does not stand up to any respectable level of science when it comes to climate and the factors that affect how climate will affect the livability of this planet for humans. That was literally one of the dumbest diatribes I have read and I have heard it 1000 times from Fox News conspiracy theorists who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, you have no knowledge, only the ability to regurgitate bullshit.
When solar panels are $.50 a watt purchasing a bi facial solar panel for any other reason than aesthetics is also a terrible investment, and they do not nearly produce anything close to what they say they do on paper.
why would bi facial be a terrible investment ? they seem to about the same cost? im asking since i about to pull the trigger on my first solar diy set up and was going to use them ground mount . they are pretty much same cost on signaturesolar and i figured i may see a gain in winter with snow on ground. what im i missing?
