Cheap but viable ground mount solutions?

[OffGridForGood]

City building dept with have the min design wind speed for the area likely over 100mph.
Depending on the elevation you put the panels, and angle (30-degrees may make sense for your latitude) you can then calculate the wind up lift or over-turning condition for the PV based on their area. If the helical piles you use are shared between adjacent PV panels, remember the loading is not one panel per four supports, but only two.
100mph winds will create forces above 50 pounds per sqft - a PV panel of 12 sqft each even if we factor the exposure for 30-degree tilt will be a lot of force. Some of the guys end up using duck-bill anchors with cables - you may want to look into these for your situation as well.

 

[Tomthumb62]

The weight of the panels will 100% not hold them down if they're tilted in the wind.

I saw large ground mount solar farms especially in the Midwest this summer. Some of them had most of the panels flat mounted. I wonder if the winds in that area have something to do with why they did this. Perhaps it was cheaper to just put up more panels than deal with the expense of a more solid ground mount system.

 

[Nonlin]

City building dept with have the min design wind speed for the area likely over 100mph.
Depending on the elevation you put the panels, and angle (30-degrees may make sense for your latitude) you can then calculate the wind up lift or over-turning condition for the PV based on their area. If the helical piles you use are shared between adjacent PV panels, remember the loading is not one panel per four supports, but only two.
100mph winds will create forces above 50 pounds per sqft - a PV panel of 12 sqft each even if we factor the exposure for 30-degree tilt will be a lot of force. Some of the guys end up using duck-bill anchors with cables - you may want to look into these for your situation as well.

Using chat gpt and I we figured 665 pounds of lift force for the panels at 30 degree tilt with 100mph wind.

 

[hwy17]

I saw large ground mount solar farms especially in the Midwest this summer. Some of them had most of the panels flat mounted. I wonder if the winds in that area have something to do with why they did this. Perhaps it was cheaper to just put up more panels than deal with the expense of a more solid ground mount system.

Also possible it was single axis trackers if you saw them at mid day. They always make me do a double take.

 

[BRIHAR32]

bag of concrete less than 4 bucks

 

[millsan1]

I have looked at building them, the high end stuff, low end stuff and for the $, and IMHO, you can't beat the brightmount. Solid piece, relatively cheap, and anchored to some kind of concrete footer, it won't go anywhere.

In my case, I have 4, and about to be 8 of these. The first 4 are mounted to concrete sewer pipes I got for free, filled with concrete. The next batch will probably go on 2x2x2 concrete blocks, partially buried.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Ops, I see I made a mistake:

so a 72 x 46 inch panel weighing 50 pounds

your panels are 23 sqft each.

I would consider the risks if the panels were to move in a storm as part of your process. Big difference between some panels out in the middle of 100Ac pasture and ones sitting 20 feet from the next house in town.

 

[TomC4306]

4x4 posts, 2x8 beams with a ripped 2x4, super strut.