Building our Tracking Photovoltaics Plant


The new year 2009 startet with a lot of changes - new company, new job, new ideas. One of those ideas was to reduce our CO2 footprint - and we quickly set on a set of things we wanted to do:
  1. Setup a photovoltaics plant that tracks the sun, and

  2. Setup solar panels to create heated liquid supporting our heating system.
So, here it is: Step 1: Setting up the photovoltaics system. The tracking mount is on a mast that is about 5 meters high, and puts the DC panels right on top of our garage. When fully lit by the sun we will be able to get 4.5 kVA peak from the plant, amount to 6000 kWh per year.

I shot a few photos from the poor craftsmen working in strong rain...








This shows the truck taking heavy steel parts to the mast - only a few centimeters from our neighbour's house. As we had a major construction going on at the house at the same time they put all the parts straight into our garden - creating, well, a bit of chaos ....


After about half-an-hour the fast-hardening cement was hard enough to marry the tracking mount with the mast.


The day's objective is finally achieved: The mast is standing right at the garage and the tracking mount is placed on top of it. - Hurreyyy !


See the Panel Mounting in Part II.

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