Electrical Engineering Manager OMCO Solar Queen Creek, Arizona, United States
This presentation will inform designers of solar power plants, EPCs, installers, developers and owner-operators about technology options for communication networks for single-axis, single-row trackers, with useful information including cost, availability, range, data rate, installation and reliability. It will describe the widely used communication protocol - Zigbee - along with alternatives including sub-GHz options, and will compare them using criteria such as cost and reliability. The results will include a correlation between system size and optimum wireless protocol, with systems > 20 MW benefiting from sub-GHz wireless technologies, which require up to 90% fewer network controllers per site. It is likely that the US solar industry, and in particular the utility-scale industry which relies primarily on single-row, single-axis trackers, will see a shift toward sub-GHz wireless networks over the next few years, enabling lower cost and higher reliability.
