Review Trackers
This task allows you to view the tracker behaviour at different days and times. You can see the tilt of the trackers throughout the day and see the effect of turning backtracking on or off. It obviously only has effect for single-axis tracker layouts. No effect is seen for fixed-tilt rack layouts.
Note
This task is only available (visible) when the currently selected site layout is showing single-axis trackers. It is hidden if the currently selected site layout is for racks.
Change the map to 3D mode. Then modify the date and time using the controls on the left:
The sun position is calculated and the tracker algorithm is run to calculate the rotation angle of each of the trackers in the layout. These are then displayed in real-time in the 3D view. The tilt angles of the trackers depend on the angle of the sun, the pitch (distance between the rows of trackers) and whether backtracking is turned on or not (in the tracker system specification).
For a single day, click and hold your mouse cursor above (or below) the time slider control. This has the effect of moving the time by 10 minutes to give a simple animation throughout the day.
The following options (checkboxes in the bottom left) are available:
- Show sun direction arrows
- These arrows can be useful to help understand behaviour - especially when the trackers are backtracking.
- Show row-to-row shading on trackers
- Shadows caused by other trackers and from shading objects.
- These shadows are coloured purple, to help distinguish the shadows from the dark terrain beneath the trackers.
- Show shadows on the ground
- These are shadows from the trackers on the ground and are also coloured purple to help them stand out.
- Note these are currently work in progress and don't always display correctly. They don't affect the calculation at all and just for display purposes.