DPW Solar manufactured this custom solution for a mountain-top repeater station.
Custom mounting solutions can save developers and contractors money, especially those working on large utility-scale projects. But money isn’t always the chief concern. Sometimes the aesthetic value of a project takes priority. Other times, environmental and geographical factors require a unique mounting design.
Whatever the case, contractors and developers can approach metal formers with their needs. Companies offer a variety of services. Some provide basic manufacturing only, while others tackle design, testing, project management and fabrication.
For utility scale developers, a custom solution—one that solves logistical challenges and comes together faster—could save a developer labor and material costs, said Jason Weber, director of business development at SAPA North America, a global aluminum manufacturer. However, a custom system is just an option. Many times off-the-shelf solutions work well, Weber said.
“There is no hard and fast rule that says if you’re going to buy 2 million pounds of material, it will be worth your while to have a custom system,” Weber said.
Alexandria Industries, a Minnesota-based provider of aluminum extrusions, provided custom mounting for the Nevada Solar One site, a 64-MW concentrated solar power plant. The site required 8 million pounds of aluminum product, fabricated over nine months and shipped to the desert.
“The developer had a solution he was not happy with,” said Mark Turley, renewable energy market leader at Alexandria Industries. “A company developed another system, but they had no manufacturer. That’s where we stepped in. We took it from the drawing board to manufacturability.”
Steel fabrication, completed by feeding material through a series of rollers that bend it to a specified shape, can be an expensive process. A set of rollers often costs between $80,000 and $200,000. Manufacturers can construct systems with steel from standard pipe to avoid the cost.
Aluminum extrusion requires a die that costs about $500. For contractors looking for an entirely custom solution at a small scale, such as an installation at a sports stadium, for example, aluminum is a good option. It won’t necessarily drive down cost, said Turley, but it could complement certain architectural desires. Both the contractors and extruder benefit from such projects.
“It might only be a thousand pounds of aluminum, but it’s a high-profile situation,” Turley said. “And extruder can put their name on it and they were a part of the project.”
DPW Solar, a New Mexico-based subsidiary of Performed Line Products and manufacturer of mounting solutions, also provides custom manufacturing, often for the off-grid market.
A common installation for DPW Solar might be a mountain-top telecommunications site with harsh snow and wind loads. In these cases, the company often uses its off-the-shelf Top-of-Pole mount, but then fabricates a custom sub-structure with galvanized pipe, said Jeff Randall, vice president of engineering at DPW Solar.
“Everybody is concentrating on the grid-tie market, where there is a lot of product and standardization, but in off-grid you have challenges like severe weather or solid rock, or a remote location where it’s difficult to deliver large components,” Randall said.
The company also creates custom enclosures for batteries and inverters—boxes that will be the right size for the technology and appropriately designed for the climate, Randall said.
Whatever type of system a contractor is looking for, metal formers—who work with both contractors and mounting companies—request that clients don’t present samples of another system and ask a duplication.
“Number one, you’re taking another company’s intellectual property,” said SAPA’s Weber. “The other thing is, a lot of people don’t understand all the engineering work that goes into a system. There are tolerances and specifications, such as alloys and tempers. You can’t just copy a system. It probably wouldn’t work.”
The question of who takes liability for a custom system is also important. Often, it’s the engineering firm that designed the system, not the company that manufactured it. SPW