GameChange Solar is among several companies entering the U.S. solar tracker market, with its Genius Tracker, which officially debuted in March.
Solar mounting manufacturers, keen to take advantage of the growing U.S. utility segment have entered the tracker market—some for the first time ever, some for the first time in the U.S.
Schletter, for example, launched its first tracker for the U.S., the FS Track-2, at Intersolar 2015. The company entered the tracker market as public support for large projects was squeezed, making energy yield a critical component of system economics. Popular sentiment about tracker technology has shifted, too.
“The industry has seen a dramatic shift of thought about tracker technology, from seeing it as a risky technology to one with high degree of acceptance,” said David Wallerstein, product manager at Schletter. “The transition of larger systems from fixed-tilt to trackers will continue to improve economics.”
Sixty percent of U.S. ground mount projects are built with solar trackers, according to reports from Greentech Media, and this figure is expected to rise. Trackers are said to increase power output by 20 to 25% over fixed-tilt solar arrays, while only adding about 5 to 10% to system cost.
SunLink, like Schletter, was another company known for its roof and fixed-tilt ground-mount options that entered the tracker market last year through a technology acquisition. The system, TechTrack, uses hydraulics to move 1.2 MW per drive.
“We’ve been watching this segment with keen interest for quite some time, and now thanks to significant gains in module efficiencies, the economics of trackers have finally gotten to the point where an investment made sense for our company and for our customers,” said Michael Maulick, CEO of SunLink. “When modules were just 100 W, a 30% improvement wasn’t that great compared with the cost of the tracker. But when you get to 300-W modules and you gain 30% of the bigger number, it brought the price in line within the right radiance maps.”
Incumbent solar tracker market leader Array Technologies attributes the rise in solar trackers to the increased reliability it’s demonstrated with its own products, as well as falling module costs. The company expected to see competitors enter the market.
“You have a market with rapidly falling costs and a market where trackers have gained credibility. That stage has been set over the past 10 years,” said ATI president Thomas Conroy. “It’s an explosive growth market, so it naturally attracts competitors.”
Reading market trends, Solar FlexRack spent a year prototyping and delivered the TDP Turnkey Tracker in December, anticipating strong demand in 2016. The TDP uses a distributed motor architecture, with each motor turning a single table of panels.
Maulick of SunLink, however, questions whether developers are installing trackers for the right reasons.
“[Trackers] cost more. But when you figure the added output, the cost per kilowatt-hour comes down,” Maulick explained. “But what I’m saying is people are basing [their purchases] only on that [cost per kWh], and not taking into account soft costs or O&M over the long haul, because the owners are typically different from the developers.”