California startup Planted Solar makes use of building robots and high-density arrays to ship what the corporate says are increased vitality outputs and decrease steadiness of system prices.
From pv journal USA
Planted Solar, a photo voltaic startup from Oakland, California, obtained $20 million in Series A funding from Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Kholsa Ventures, in addition to the Department of Energy Funds to scale terrain-following photo voltaic set up design.
The firm installs its arrays like a sheet, which is packed collectively, as an alternative of utilizing the usual line spacing. Instead of bettering the terrain to be flat and uniform, the corporate’s photo voltaic mounts comply with the terrain, permitting as much as a 27% slope. This helps scale back the price of land improvement and permits for extra energy-per-acre.
This might show vital, because the US Bureau of Land Management predicts that the nation will want 22 million hectares for photo voltaic undertaking deployment.
“Compared to south-facing fastened tilt and tracker designs, a Planted array offers comparable kWh/kWp yield when utilizing the next inverter loading ratio (ILR) and considerably decrease price of structural steadiness of the system and set up, reduces the quantity of civil work and civil danger, and requires a lot much less land,” stated Planted Solar.
The firm says its design permits one megawatt of photo voltaic to be put in on simply two acres, lower than the 5 acres usually required for one megawatt of photo voltaic capability. The easy mount that follows the bottom results in a 50% discount within the steadiness of system prices and fewer set up time.
“This provides as much as a system with decrease building prices, increased DC system dimension, and the identical annual kWh manufacturing,” the corporate stated.
The terrain-following mounts are suitable with all standard modules codecs and sizes, stated the corporate.
After the design section, the corporate makes use of set up robots to deploy the photo voltaic panels, which it says reduces set up time and prices. Planted Solar stated its design will scale back impacts comparable to erosion on developed land, defined in a whitepaper.
“Planted’s low-impact methodology of fixed-tilt photo voltaic PV basis and desk set up is modern in its automation, low influence/low disturbance, and tolerance of use in present circumstances of soil with out grading. In addition, the decrease cross-section space of Planted basis legs ought to scale back native scour in comparison with conventional piles. Installation utilizing Planted strategies will scale back disturbance and end in hydrological and hydraulic influence on a website in comparison with conventional installations of photo voltaic arrays,” stated Planted Solar.
Planted Solar chief govt Eric Brown stated it’s quickly “shifting from pilots to portfolios.” The firm introduced that it has been chosen for an 11 MW portfolio of initiatives within the Chicago space with Cultivate Power.
“Planted Solar provides our staff a strategic device to be stewards of the land and develop higher initiatives with our group companions,” stated Brian Matthay, co-founder and managing director of Cultivate Power. “Cultivate is targeted on partnering with landowners and communities so we are able to combine photo voltaic seamlessly into the native surroundings and agricultural operations.”
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