Why You Shouldn't Buy a Solar Panel Tracker

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[dangehrke]

For Residential Grid-Tie, I agree with adding more panels. For Off-Grid, a Tracking System significantly reduces the time you are running on battery.

[brockm]

I love my tracker. It makes a huge difference on my 1420w array. Also, I built it myself with reclaimed material so the only additional cost was my own labor. If I had to actually spend coin I would just buy more panels as this video suggests.

[dennispeet]

Because we don’t sell trackers we sell solar panels

[phantomsoldier]

It depends. If you make a roof system, it's not worth it but if you have space on the yard and want to produce as much power as possible, tracking is the way

[ElderlyIron]

My being in a horseshoe canyon limits the sunlight hours. Tracking is essential.

[stephenorr]

What about "parking" the array vertically during a snowstorm and when the snow stops falling, the system can resume an optimal orientation? It seems to me that locations with heavy snowfall change the equation.

[AORD]

Solar tracking can be very cheap. Tracking makes the energy generation more consistent. Early morning and afternoon when you use more energy you will have more energy because of tracking. Look at the comparisons of daily graphs. Tracking is far more consistent over the day. Stationary has a big peak in the middle of the day.

[JoLe]

you get between 40 and 70% more electric energy with a tracker, but the big plus of a tracker is that you get very constant power throughout the day (as long as the sun is shining), which is necessary to run electric motors off grid without relying on expensive battery storage. obviously, a tracker of a certain size is a construction challenge, as it must cope with wind gusts

[evenodds]

1. It’s not cheaper to buy more panels. I built a 5.7kw dual axis tracker for $450 on top of the already needed mount. That’s 40% more production for 20% cost
2. Not everybody can fit more panels on their property.
3. It’s not only the panels you have to buy. You need to add the cost of additional inverters, mounting, wiring, etc.

100% wrong, don’t listen to her

[stephenorr]

I still would like to understand how a fixed array compares to a tracker system in locations with dynamic weather including intermittent heavy snowfalls. It seems to me that a tracker could be optimized to position the array in a near vertical orientation during a heavy snow fall (orienting the "thin" aspect of the array in the orientation of the wind) to optimize on minimizing snow accumulation on the array then when the snow storm passes and the sun comes out the tracker can re-orient the snow free solar array to immediately capture the light... I have personally experienced heavy snow accumulation events whereby a day later the sun comes out super bright and intense with not a cloud in the sky. Engineered adaptation in differing climates seems to me to be logical.

[brentstewart]

Bunch of baloney my trackers almost double my power production

[warrenmaloney]

If you have a small yard and the roof is the only place for panels; then she is right.
I love my tracker. Thanks for the video.

[MH-Tesla]

Okay. I call bs... of course you want to sell more panels. Building a tracker used with a simple timer is super cheap. The tracking for times of year can be adjusted manually. So a simple timer that moves a motor 5 degrees every x minutes... then every 12 hour returns to start... that's so simple a jr high tech student could install. As the seasons change, you manually adjust the other direction. For 20-25% more power after spending maybe $200 in parts. No brainer. Of course this is not roof installed and you need enough open land space to mount on posts. Most suburban and urban people will be stuck with roof mounts.

[swm-smcu]

Since my boat faces different directions when I'm using it, my solar panels can often be facing the wrong direction. I have them on a satellite TV pole mount that allows me to turn the panels up and down and rotate them 360 degrees. I have to do it by hand, but that's OK. It can make a huge difference in the output of solar energy.

[bobsnabby]

Trackers add 40% output, good luck adding 40% panels to compensate. Trackers are of course mechanical and totally nonsense expensive because there is that other marketing personnel insisting you MUST buy overpriced tracker with 20 year service contract. If you have even a bit common sense and you are handy, you build and service such simple device yourself adding 40% output with very little money and effort.

[stevelamperta]

She's completely wrong ! Solar trackers are worth it depending on your system and what the variables are . And they add more than 25%, I'd say its closer to 50 % by my calculations !

[michaelmccotter]

I agree the expense of trackers is better overcome by simply adding more solar panels for far less $.
However for less than $300 a solar tracker control system can be purchased and you can build your own tracker. Saving thousands. Saving space.

[josephmerritt]

Several variables are involved in the decision to use solar tracking versus fixed. In addition, the pricing for all the solar components is also changing. Everyone needs to look at their specific requirements and evaluate all the tradeoffs. There is no particular response.

[jjime]

So why do industrial solar farms use them? It’s because you increase the total solar radiation captured per day, you could gain 4-6 hours per day

[woodzyfox]

SOO YES! Dual axis tracker is 1000% WORTH IT!! Fixed 12kWh Dual axis tracker 19kWh. you do the math...