Ignite Solar LLC, a Houston-based company that offers design, manufacture and installation of solar mounting and tracking systems for large-scale photovoltaic installations, is currently testing a small-scale solar panel and tracking system, using a Green Bank rooftop as the laboratory.
Ignite Solar says it has mounted a small-scale solar panel and motorized tracking system to test the increased energy-collecting efficiency of panels that move with the sun across the day's sky. The test is evaluating the benefits of sun-tracking with thin-film panels, and soon will begin to evaluate the differences of sun-tracking thin-film panels and sun-tracking more expensive, traditional crystalline silicon panels.
‘With the addition of optimized tracking, thin-film panels perform similarly to silicon panels, but at significant cost savings,’ says Peter Mathey, president and CEO of Ignite Solar. ‘These economies lower the threshold for building large-scale solar energy farms and will help bring more renewable energy to the grid.’
SOURCE: Ignite Solar LLC