[RE-wrenches] Tracstar Linear Tracker

[North Texas Renewable Energy Inc]

While the cost of PV has been driven down by worldwide demand for mW scale
installations, that lower cost benefit flows down to small installation too.
And the same is true with trackers. Huge increases in demand have driven
competition which has brought manufacturing costs down, which in return, has
forced more efficent design and manufacturing process in order to remain
competitive.
Especially true in the Euro market is the fact that many mWs of PV installs
are on trackers. One primary reason is the increased power gained by moving
further north away from the equator, a subtle but very real available gain
in daily insolation we in southern climates don't share the benefit from.
It's to a point that, in utility scale tracker installs at least, the
too-high price of the land for the array is more likely to be a deal-breaker
than the cost of the PV.
While the $/W still follows the economy-of-scale curve the PV prices are
less a factor than previously observed.
Jim Duncan
North Texas Renewable Energy
NABCEP Certified Solar PV
Installer No.031310-57
TECL 27398
ntrei at 1scom.net
817.917.0527
www.ntrei.com

  -----Original Message-----
  From: re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org
[mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org]On Behalf Of Jeff Oldham
  Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 3:39 PM
  To: re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
  Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Tracstar Linear Tracker



  Tracstar is as good as any of them, however I would not track this array
unless it is dedicated to a pumping load or MAYBE grid tie on a PBI. My
issue is that PV is too cheap now to do much in the way of justification for
the added expense and reliability issues. We are so lucky to have energy
systems that can produce power with no moving parts and have an extremely
long life that I just cannot see intentionally adding complex and expensive
moving parts to undo this elegance. Closely look at your math and see just
how close the economics are considering PV can be retailed for likely under
$2.20/W. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, you should consider tracker
service life. With modules lasting 50+ years you surely will have to replace
the tracker well before the array, if not twice or more. Personally, I think
trackers lasting more than 15-20 years w/o significant servicing is not
realistic. Not much in the solar world more aggravating then seeing the sun
shining on the BACK of your array at almost noon! It seems that we spend a
lot of time trying to talk customers out of sexy notions like trackers,
battery back-up grid tied systems and wind where there is little.

  I think trackers can have their place, but not many! And this is coming
from a guy w/a tracker for 20 years and I refuse to remove it,I just keep
rebuilding it (they are indeed very cool when working). All expansions have
been fixed mounted.


  From the Solar, Wind and Hydro powered office of Jeff Oldham/Regenerative
SOLutions


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