Cable mounted system?

[svetz]

I saw this system in this video and thought it was interesting. The video is poor quality, but what's of interest is the racking. Looks like a single axis tracker, could be a dual I guess. Haven't seen anything like it before. Video said it was soybeans, but they're a "full sun" crop so not sure about that (possibly the panels are high enough and bifacial)?





I found a few agrivoltaic manufacturers, but none seem to be the manufacturer in the image. Nice to see something different.

Stracker Solar

Stracker Solar generates more power per square foot than any other solar installation with elevated dual-axis solar trackers that follow the sun like a sunflower.

strackersolar.com

Mechatron Solar – Unique, Patented Gearless Tracking Boosts Reliability

mechatron-solar.com

Smart PV Solar Tracker Solutions - Solargik

SolarGik offers smart PV tracker solutions that are modular, configurable, lightweight, and easy to install and maintain, which provide 20-25% more energy

www.solargik.com

ANYWHERE SOLAR

Anywhere.Solar bietet innovative PV-Carports und E-Ladestationen mit höchstem Designanspruch und maximaler Flexibilität. Setzen Sie auf Solarenergie für eine nachhaltige Zukunft.

www.anywhere.solar

Top Rated Title 24 Reports, Energy Calculations, & HERS Rater | 5 Star Energy | Title 24 California Compliance

Top Rated Title 24 Reports, Energy Calculations, & HERS Rater in California. Let us save you money on Title 24 Energy Requirements for your project. (530) 275-3350

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[Bongbong]

That does seem unlikely, I would think that shadows by the cables would make this system less than ideal.

 

[Q-Dog]

It looks ... complicated. Maybe more than it needs to be.

 

[svetz]

It looks ... complicated. Maybe more than it needs to be.

I know, so cool! What a challenge to design/build something like that. Makes me wonder what's next. ; -)

France mandates the land is ≥ 90% as food productive as without panels. I know the higher something is from the ground, the more diffused the shadow becomes because of the sun's size... Let's see what google says...

The minimum panel height for agrivoltaics generally falls between 2.5 to 5 meters (about 8 to 16 feet) above the ground

found that a distance between panel rows of at least 1.5 times panel height is crucial to create the best environmental conditions ref

...show that an agrivoltaic solar farm mounted at 4 m with soybeans underneath exhibits solar module temperature reductions of up to 10 °C compared to a solar farm mounted at 0.5 m over bare soil. These results indicate that ground conditions and panel height play important roles in solar farm cooling... ref

There's the “The 5 C’s of Agrivoltaics Success” (grr, the NREL site has been acting up the last month. If you keep refreshing the link it should eventually come up). Saw some experiments where the panels were also rotated vertically and moved so the shadow wasn't constant, but no cost/benefit information so assume it's horrid. Lot's of YT vids on the topic, but really haven't seen one with hard data. If one comes up in my feed I'll post it.

Possibly the closeness of the panels in the image is an optical illusion or was some sort of test area from when they were figuring it out. We need someone (Will?) to go to France to investigate... ; -)

Being aerial like that makes sense to make driving the harvester easier, give the plants and pollinators space, more solar diffusion. It sort of reminds of a ski lift. I wonder how reliable they are? Probably not for places like Florida with occasional high wind loading. Still, pretty cool.