A California winery will meet 95% of its electricity needs with a solar panel that tilts on two axes to track direct sunlight all day long.
The Del Dotto Winery in Napa Valley, California, has installed a solar project with large dual-axis solar trackers from Mechatron Solar.
The vineyard is expected to meet 95% of its electricity needs with the existing solar panels. Del Dotto Winery spends approximately $120,000 annually on PG&E electricity bills and is expected to save $3 million over the life of the project. The company is expected to break even on its solar investments within three years.
The project involved the installation of four Mechatron M18KD trackers. Each tracker can support 90 solar panels with 72 cells each or 72 panels with 144 cells each, resulting in a yield of more than 43 kW on a single mast.
The winery’s system includes dual-sided panels, which collect photons from both sides of the panel, including from light reflected from the ground.
The company said its dual-axis trackers produce about 40% more electricity than fixed-tilt solar projects and 20% more than single-axis tracking arrays. It has a high energy density, up to 1 MW per 4 acres.
Each Mechatron tracker is typically raised 9 meters above the ground and occupies only a 10 square meter footprint, keeping land use open and available compared to a typical row of single-axis trackers. This project was modified to place the panels at a height of 15 feet for aesthetic reasons, as the winery is located along a stretch of scenic highway.
“We chose the Mechatron Solar tracker solution because of the minimal amount of landscape it occupies,” said Mike Burgess, Del Dotto’s CFO. “Scientifically and mechanically, the dual axis is more efficient than the alternative fixed-tilt or single-axis solar mounting systems.”
The solar project also included a microgrid control system from LynxSystems. The microgrid control system monitors the facility’s load and reduces or adds load depending on the capacity of the alternative sources.
Mechatron manufactures its products in Stockton, California, making it eligible for domestic content tax credits under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Burgess said that, on a net cash basis, the project reduced costs by approximately 50% from gross costs due to incentives.
“We manufacture the M18KD at our Stockton facility in Northern California and are proud to say that our trackers are Made in America to 2022 US Treasury IRA Domestic Content Bonus Credit specifications,” said Ted Ronshausen, chief commercial officer of Mechatron Solar.
The company’s dual-axis trackers can go through 360 degrees of azimuth rotation and 60 degrees of zenith slope. It can withstand wind gusts up to 115 mph and snow loads up to 35 psf, although snow loads are typically dissipated via an automated stowage sensor and motion management software.
Mechatron Solar has an annual production capacity of 200 MW of trackers.
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