Insane quotes for ground mount

[OzSolar]

Yes and No.

Around here we get this fluffy white stuff that sticks to PV panels. My array is tilted in winter to 65 degrees off horizontal. White stuff doesn't stick to the panels well. I can go to a town 3.5 miles from here with fixed around 45 degrees, they go for days or even weeks if it is cold, and that white stuff is glued on there. No so bad with micro inverters, which those panels have, but not good for my 8 panel series strings.

Adding more PV won't get that white stuff off.

Right now at equinox, 45 degree tilt. Summer solstice 30 degrees. I can also drive my lawnmower under it. There is this green stuff that comes out of the ground that gets long if it isn't cut and I'm not getting sheep.

Great points and of course it's specific to your situation. In my case it's a few minutes a with garden hose with my 60f well water and I've gotten rid of all the snow the I have to deal with and that's only every other year. Some people never see snow while other still have some in June.

 

[Zwy]

Great points and of course it's specific to your situation. In my case it's a few minutes a with garden hose with my 60f well water and I've gotten rid of all the snow the I have to deal with and that's only every other year. Some people never see snow while other still have some in June.

I knew I wanted a mount that could be tilted in winter, I had been observing for a few years the panels wouldn't clear off for days. The roof mounted here are a joke, good thing it is grid tie and they don't know any better. It's also why the Kwh bank for grid tie usually is gone by mid January.

 

[Hedges]

Rather than a really heavy duty ground mount, wouldn't you be money ahead and solar ahead to create opposing ground mounts, mounted on a 45 degree angle, running north>south? Like an "A" frame? This design would eliminate uplift because the panels facing east and the panels facing west would shield each other from the wind.

It seems like you could install such a system with basic mounts and spend your saved money on more solar panels and therefore more production? Interested in feedback for such a design?

Good in the summer half of the year.
I would think, instead of the two facing due East and West, better for winter if facing SE and SW.
(for sun exposure, not aerodynamics.)

For more panels, one array facing straight up. Could be supported by these frames, makes a flat roof, gives more in summer.
If what you need is more in winter, put the additional panels in the triangle oriented S.

 

[MichaelK]

Anyway... if you've got the room it can make more sense to oversize your array than to fiddle around with season adjustment or tracking. Watts are cheaper than concrete and steel.

That's true, but only up to a point. I'm really not interested in making maximal watts. What I'm interested in is running maximum loads. My well-pump for example. It needs about 2000W to run, but if I wanted to start it at 8:00AM, I'd need about 20,000W of solar if I didn't want to drain the battery.

With the rotating arrays, my 4000W of panels can make an honest 2000W before 8AM by rotating the Eastward. Same in the late afternoon. I'd need 20,000W if I want to keep the pump running till 4PM.

 

[mountkay]

I initally bought ironridge kit but couldnt source the pipe for it

I did an iron ridge kit for 6.8KW of panels.
I was blow away by the cost of it.
Spent $3k on the panels. Iron ridge kit was $2k. Plus the 3” mechanical tubing (pipe). was another $2.5k (ordered from Tubular USA - they sell specifically for the iron ridge kit).

I was working with a solar installer to design my plans. Had to hold up to 120mph winds and needed an engineering stamp. 40deg angle. Concrete footers were supposed to be 1’ in diameter 7’ down. 8x posts. (I believe you can design this all on iron-ridges website and get the plans from them for free).

I wanted a steeper angle for the winter, 45-60deg, but it would have required 2x as many posts, or 1.5’ diameter footers just to go from 40deg to 45deg. We hit rock at 4’ down so luckily the building inspector let me go 4’ instead of 7’ deep. I’m probably not holding up to that 120mph, although I doubt I need to.

Had to have a contractor smash thru rock w an excavator to get to 4’ - an auger wouldn’t have done it. That cost $450. Concrete and sono tubes cost $500.

Built the whole thing with a friend and poured the concrete with family.

I guess my point to @diygm is that $8k for a 12kw array ground mount that can withstand the wind you need seems reasonable to me. I paid about ~$5.5k for mine and that was with a good amount of labor.

I’m pretty sure you can play around with all of your settings on the iron ridge website and see what would be required for different sizes and angles, etc.




I attached the iron ridge installation manual as well

 

[JaVid]

Good in the summer half of the year.
I would think, instead of the two facing due East and West, better for winter if facing SE and SW.
(for sun exposure, not aerodynamics.)

For more panels, one array facing straight up. Could be supported by these frames, makes a flat roof, gives more in summer.
If what you need is more in winter, put the additional panels in the triangle oriented S.

I like the flat roof idea!

 

[stratmister]

The bottome T-section of the array frame is a 4" schedule 40 pipe that sits on top of a 3.5" schedule 40 pipe sunk 3' in concrete. This allows the frame to be rotated left-right to track the sun from East to West. The vertical panel members are welded to the horizontal portion of the T-section with hinges, so the frame can be tilled up and down to change declination. So, this allows both daily and seasonal adjustments. All members besides the pipe are all either full-channel or half-channel unistruts.

that sounds like you make seasonal adjustments manually.

 

[MichaelK]

that sounds like you make seasonal adjustments manually.

That's right. Although I see substantial gains in output by rotating East to West over the course of the day, I see far less increases adjusting for declination. Basically too much effort for the limited gain. So, while I adjust azimuth hourly, I only adjust declination quarterly.

 

[dbco]

I have three quotes for three different solar installers with good reputations in my area. All are pretty outrageous, all came in at $40k for ~12kw, All said the issue was that I want a ground mount. 32 panels.

Quote 1 was $8400 extra for the ground mount.
Quote 2 was $8700 extra for the ground mount.
Quote 3 was $9000 extra for the ground mount.

You have to be kidding me. I live in a county with zero permitting or inspections required for a ground mount. I have a spot 95 feet from the breaker box that has 100% unobstructed southern exposure 365 days per year. There is absolutely nothing between where the panels would go, and the breaker box, so the trenching is no problem. The one issue with this area is that we do get high winds, it is not theoretical, we *will* get 80-100MPH gusts out of the northwest at least once per year. This is Colorado.

I have decided to go DIY for the entire project.

I looked at some of the DIY racking people have shown on here and a lot of them clearly aren't going to hold up to 100MPH.

Has anyone done a DIY install that has held up to these kinds of winds, and what did you use?

Similar system here.....I'm using Ironridge racking. They have a website that automatically configures the system...pier spacing, pipe diameter, bore hole size etc. The system configured for your wind, snow load and soil type and is pre-approved in most states with engineering stamp provide on request. Good luck.