The town adjacent to me is a summer colony and sometimes the residents like to compete to show how progressive's they are. There are a lot of old summer homes and converted camps. The latest subtle way of letting the neighbors know that the owner is "greener" is a solar array. The town is in a snow belt (highest ground snow load in an occupied town in NH) at 110 PSF. The latitude is roughly 45 degrees so there is quite a difference in summer and winter optimum angles. Vermont several years ago put in an incentive system to encourage locally built equipment effectively ghost written by a company that happened to be coming out with multiaxis tracking collectors so the incentives were focused on trackers. if you search for All Earth Renewable they will pop up. They definitely are the status symbol in VT. In NH they make little of no sense due to the substantial added cost for the tracker with no targeted incentives but the local solar guy has installed several locally in Northern NH, presumably for people with more money than common sense.. This summer I noticed a new foundation installed in the small yard of a summer residence and about 2 months ago a 4 KW tracking array was installed. its a small lot facing south but the house roof really wasn't suitable for a big array and given its age my bet is the roof structure is undersized so no option of adding them to the roof. There was room for ground mounts but instead they put the foundation in what looks to be the minimum set back from the road. With the array mounted and it rotated out in an arc it almost looks like someone could touch it when they drive by, So chalk one up for a conspicuous install. I think the term "one that only a mother could love might apply". They look good in a farm field but next to a small home on a tight lot the proportions are jarring.
its been a very mild winter with minimal snow up until a week ago. We had several days of snow and it totaled up to 16" possibly. The thing most folks don't factor in is with slated arrays the snow still falls on them and it either initially slides down in front of the array and forms a mound or on occasion it builds up on the array and then slumps off all in one shot forming a well packed mound that rapidly gets hard.. The tracking arrays have various preprogramed responses to unusual conditions. if they are covered with snow they tilt full vertical and track until the snow slumps off, If its too windy an anemometer has a high winds setpoint and the array goes horizontal to cut down on sail area. I am unsure what it does if its windy and snowing but I think it goes horizontal and then at some point when the wind drops it goes vertical to clear the accumulation. Folks would assume the wind would scour the snow off but not always if its sticky. In theory these have been sold in snowy Vermont for years but in this town there is an identical unit that seems to be left in one position all winter. Sixteen inches of snow on the ground is not much for winter in Northern NH. Many winters I will get four feet of snow in my front yard and have seen 6'. I have a pole mount array that was originally designed for snow clearance but at one point I swapped out the panels for larger ones so my snow clearance at winter angle is about 30" I have a snow blower and usually run the snowblower in front of the array while cleaning up after a storm and that deals with any snow that slides down. So the other day I am driving down the road past this lot and what do I see?, a tracking array stuck in a lump of snow at an odd rotation angle somewhere in the early morning angle. My guess is the array woke up after windy night, detected snow build up and rotated vertical until the snow slumped off and it built up a mound of snow higher than the lower edge of the array. My guess is the array has at best 3' of clearance in winter on each side at its centerline but when the array is rotated 90 degrees to the sun the top edge is is closer to 2' its on slope so at noon the array probably has 4' plus at noon.
Running a snowblower in front of this 4 KW beast may not be easy, its on sloped lot and its not just one strip that needs clearing it pretty well the entire tracking radius. I am not sure if the owner is home but at some point I expect there will be an interesting phone call or two. The town is also in high wind zone so I dont know if they could add in a spacer to raise the array. Its not something that would be easy to guy as the array sweeps quite an arc. Most of the summer folks are gone for the winter so except for the locals the embarrassment is minimal. My guess is they will fix the array at one angle for the winter and then start it tracking again in April when the snow pack melts and the summer folks start returning. At least they will get some extra output in the summer for their investment.
its been a very mild winter with minimal snow up until a week ago. We had several days of snow and it totaled up to 16" possibly. The thing most folks don't factor in is with slated arrays the snow still falls on them and it either initially slides down in front of the array and forms a mound or on occasion it builds up on the array and then slumps off all in one shot forming a well packed mound that rapidly gets hard.. The tracking arrays have various preprogramed responses to unusual conditions. if they are covered with snow they tilt full vertical and track until the snow slumps off, If its too windy an anemometer has a high winds setpoint and the array goes horizontal to cut down on sail area. I am unsure what it does if its windy and snowing but I think it goes horizontal and then at some point when the wind drops it goes vertical to clear the accumulation. Folks would assume the wind would scour the snow off but not always if its sticky. In theory these have been sold in snowy Vermont for years but in this town there is an identical unit that seems to be left in one position all winter. Sixteen inches of snow on the ground is not much for winter in Northern NH. Many winters I will get four feet of snow in my front yard and have seen 6'. I have a pole mount array that was originally designed for snow clearance but at one point I swapped out the panels for larger ones so my snow clearance at winter angle is about 30" I have a snow blower and usually run the snowblower in front of the array while cleaning up after a storm and that deals with any snow that slides down. So the other day I am driving down the road past this lot and what do I see?, a tracking array stuck in a lump of snow at an odd rotation angle somewhere in the early morning angle. My guess is the array woke up after windy night, detected snow build up and rotated vertical until the snow slumped off and it built up a mound of snow higher than the lower edge of the array. My guess is the array has at best 3' of clearance in winter on each side at its centerline but when the array is rotated 90 degrees to the sun the top edge is is closer to 2' its on slope so at noon the array probably has 4' plus at noon.
Running a snowblower in front of this 4 KW beast may not be easy, its on sloped lot and its not just one strip that needs clearing it pretty well the entire tracking radius. I am not sure if the owner is home but at some point I expect there will be an interesting phone call or two. The town is also in high wind zone so I dont know if they could add in a spacer to raise the array. Its not something that would be easy to guy as the array sweeps quite an arc. Most of the summer folks are gone for the winter so except for the locals the embarrassment is minimal. My guess is they will fix the array at one angle for the winter and then start it tracking again in April when the snow pack melts and the summer folks start returning. At least they will get some extra output in the summer for their investment.
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