We have been wanting to add solar voltaic to our house for a long time. The trouble is that our roof faces east and west. Not exactly the best orientation for collecting sunshine. Then we found this great ground-mounted tracking system from CBS Solar. These units are made in Michigan and have several advantages for a cold climate. Most importantly, they follow the direction of the sun all day to maximize exposure. If they get covered with snow, they generally dump the snow off as they "wake up" every morning as they tilt to find the rising sun. If the snow comes later in the day and it coats the top surface, the reverse side of these panels can catch the sun that reflects off of the snow below. Pretty cool, eh?
What did we install:
- (Two) Super Trackers, each with 4-400 Watt Bi-Facial Panels.
- Individual AC inverters for all 8 panels.
- Grid-tied system with no battery backup (yet).
- Nano SC coating on the panels, guaranteed to keep the panels clean for 20 years.
- Panel specs: LG NeON H (LG435N2T-E6) with a 25-year warranty. Approx. 4'x7' each, so a total of 7'w X 16'h on each tracker.
- Installed by CBS Solar, Copemish, Michigan.
- Our total electrical energy usage last year was 5648 kWh.