The ballasted roof-mount industry is maturing and becoming more sophisticated, and manufacturers are designing more creatively and more efficiently.
New systems use fewer components and standardizing parts, according to Yury Reznikov, vice president of product management and strategy at SunLink.
Racking suppliers with healthy balance sheets invested in product innovation and tooling, keeping greater inventories and driving volume through their supply chains.
Ultimately, they are able to provide better products on a more reliable schedule at a lower cost. That’s why it’s becoming tougher for small players to remain competitive.
Elie Rothschild, sales manager at Sollega, believes more companies are coming into this market with a belief that it’s easy, which creates problems. Reliable racking is critical for system success and withstanding elements for 30 or more years. Engineering and testing to that standard is not easy.
“I see many systems that I don’t think are nearly as strong as they need to be,” Rothschild says. “We do extensive testing and have a large safety factor built into our racking systems. The old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ is definitely true in racking.”
A major trend in ballasted racking over the past year has been a strong move towards integrated bonding systems that reduce electrical costs and installation timing, with the elimination of bonding components such as WEEBs.
Photo courtesy of Schletter
Unirac’s RM system illustrates this trend by eliminating bonding components with a module clamp that also acts as the module bonding path. With the bonding directly integrated with the module clip, bonding between modules and to the racking system requires just the turn of a wrench.
SunLink’s Precision RMS also showcases the potential of integration and pre-assembly.
“We’ve integrated slip sheets into the system by using rubber feet, and we’ve integrated wire management into the system through wire clips and trays,” Reznikov says. “We’ve enabled the integration of combiner boxes into the system with combiner box mounting hardware. Many of the components are delivered preassembled. All of this integration speeds up installation, reduces total installed cost and improves overall system quality and reliability.”
Recently, racking and mounting has come under more scrutiny from regulatory bodies in the United States and from permitting officials, says Bill Vaught, product manager at Unirac. Standards making and influencing bodies such as UL and Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC) are releasing guidelines and certifications relating specifically to how racking and mounting for PV systems should be designed from a structural and electrical standpoint.
“Over the long term, these guidelines and testing requirements may cause smaller or lower-quality PV racking suppliers to drop out of the market,” Vaught says.
Fire regulations have also emerged as a key focus for 2014, Reznikov says. Given that the way modules behave on the roof has to do with how they are mounted, the UL 1703 module standard was updated to require fire testing for racking. Few mounting systems have been tested so far, with most of the industry preparing to comply. Testing will likely occupy much of the remainder of the year.
Racking and mounting companies, including Unirac, continue to focus on promoting brands in real time by leveraging social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.
“We leverage social media to determine which topics interest our solar market viewership,” says Marcelo Gomez, director of marketing at Unirac. “By using this information, we are able to respond quickly with refined messaging that is timely and relevant to our target audience.”