EFFECTIVE BACKTRACKING ALGORITHM FOR HALF-CUT CELL SOLAR PANELS

Abstract

The Gold Tree Solar Farm is a single-axis tracking facility that is made up of two different kinds of panels: conventional single cell and half-cut cell solar panels. The standard for maximizing power production through shade elimination in a horizontal single axis tracker is an algorithm known as backtracking. Traditional backtracking is designed for conventional panels and adjusts the tracker angle to eliminate row to row shading. However, this may not be the optimal algorithm in all cases for an installation using half-cut cell panels. By altering the algorithm to shade half of the panel at certain times, it is possible to increase the power production of half-cut cell panels during the beginning and end of a day using a technique that will be called half-backtracking.