Tracking and Ground Cover Ratio

Energy yield and occupation of land are two parameters that must be optimized when designing a large PV plant. This paper presents the results of simulating the energy yield of flat panels for some locations and different tracking strategies as a function of the ground cover ratio. Some interesting results for design purposes, such as the optimal solar trackers depending on the land availability or the energy gains of every tracking strategy, are shown. For example, the energy gains associated to one north-south axis tracking, referenced to static surfaces, ranges from 18 to 25%, and from 37 to 45% for the two-axes tracker for reasonable ground cover ratios. To achieve these results, a simulation tool with appropriate models to calculate the energy yield for different solar trackers has been developed. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.