Erthos, an Arizona power expertise firm that makes Earth Mount Photo voltaic PV, a mounting system that secures photo voltaic panels flat to the bottom, has signed a developer settlement with the renewable Power Industrial Solar for a 100+ megawatt (MW) photo voltaic challenge in Texas. It will likely be the one utility-scale photo voltaic farm put in flat on the bottom up to now.
Erthos wrote that “the challenge has an anticipated interconnect capability of 100 MWac, which all Industrial Solar intends to make use of,” as a result of the precise dimension of the photo voltaic farm has not been revealed.
Industrial Solar confronted the issue of land management for this specific challenge, and that is the place Earth Mount Photo voltaic PV got here in. Standard photo voltaic mounting applied sciences sometimes require greater than 5 acres of land per megawatt of capability. However Earth Mount Photo voltaic PV solely wants lower than 2.5 acres per megawatt of capability. So in line with Erthos, its flat mounting approach allows photo voltaic farms to realize power density greater than double that of typical utility-scale photo voltaic farms.
Erthos claims {that a} photo voltaic farm on flat mounts will be inbuilt half the time for half the price of typical mounting methods. It additionally claims that it makes use of 70% much less cable and requires 70% much less trenching and that its system is hurricane proof.
In September 2021, PV Journal Australia explains how Earth Mount Photo voltaic PV works:
The “ErthCompatible” specification licensed by Erthos requires the usage of IP68 glass-glass modules. Module suppliers usually use bifacial modules to suit that requirement. One other function of the specification is the usage of an plane cable inserted into the edges of the module, to forestall motion up and down or facet to facet. Retaining the panels secure and flat permits the usage of one other Erthos innovation: an autonomous cleansing robotic. The robotic, or fleet of robots, runs each night time, and one robotic can clear as much as 2 MW per day.
The tutorial web site Photo voltaic Tech Advisor explains what IP68 photo voltaic panels are:
The very best score a photo voltaic panel can obtain for waterproofing is IP68. This score implies that the product is mud tight and will be submerged in water for lengthy durations of time. IP68 rated photo voltaic panels can be utilized in areas with excessive water strain, corresponding to everlasting underwater purposes.
Erthos says its robots handle dust and fowl droppings. Its CEO, Jim Tyler, stated PV Journal Australia:
The common value of cleansing a tracker plant, one time, is about 50 cents per kW. We are going to clear our photo voltaic plant day by day for a yr at 50 cents per kW.
He additionally addressed issues about excessive temperatures in the identical interview:
I made a deadly flawed evaluation of the concept. The one deadly flaw of hysteria that I personally have is temperature. And so as soon as I verified the temperature efficiency of the module’s max cell temperature, I used to be happy. I occur to reside in Phoenix which is among the hottest locations on the planet. And it occurred to achieve 118 levels (47.8 C) outdoors once I ran our first plant in 2019. And positive sufficient, the cell module temperature was not even near the utmost cell temperature. And I stated: That’s the reply.
In March 2022, Erthos closed a $17.5 million Sequence B financing spherical, led by Capricorn Funding Group which has additionally invested in Tesla and SpaceX.
What do you consider photo voltaic farms mounted flat on the bottom? Tell us within the feedback under.
Learn extra: The biggest landfill photo voltaic challenge in North America has been accomplished
Picture: Erthos
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