Looks good, but I can tell you the 31% number is sales hype by the tracker salesman. Yes, the array will be aimed directly at the morning and late evening sun, BUT the sales guys for trackers forget to mention that the sun, when lower in the horizon, is shining thru more atmosphere, so the output is less. More like 15 to a max of 25%. Then when we pencil out the cost of the tracker, and with solar at less then $1.00 per watt (less then .50 actually), it is not a good time to be in the tracker business!
For 30 years I had a side biz of small scale off grid solar, that evolved into grid tie, until more and more regulations, driven largely by insurance companies, made it impractical to dabble in it, I found it more trouble then it was worth to keep up, so officially got out last year. Being in the crane biz also, I of course found a way to tie the 2 together, and it goes without saying the plane always was part of the deal. I built, delivered and set, over 50 of what came to be my standard array size, roughly 10'x20', so as much as 3.8 KW. This size was my sweet spot, very little waste using stock steel lengths, when trucking them (thru Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho) just an over width permit but not a pilot car needed), and also just right for handling them in my shop.
I'd fab the frames, paint them (Rustoleum red primer, great stuff) install the panels and pre wire and test them, all in my spare time at my at home shop, between my main money making crane work. A sweet deal.....even though many of the projects were in remote areas, requiring flying out and finding a place to land to meet with my customers, tough duty but someone had to do it.
I'd advise them as to what size pipe, how deep, how much concrete, etc., they'd get it all ready, and then when I trucked the arrays out there it was a few minutes work to set them into place with my 22 or 30 ton boom truck. This maximized my time spent "out" and gave my customers the best bang for the buck. I sold the crap out of them, especially after they would check into a more traditional solar supplier, I was undercutting them by half and still making real good bucks, all in my spare time. Plus large quantity purchases meant cheap gear for myself.
But this IS a flying forum, and one of the best stories I have is when an old boy in Warren ID. wanted a few smaller panels, (two of them, my profit maybe 50 bucks) and as my ad said "free delivery", I did so, clear across the Frank. Not a good business decision, but a great flying one. A month later he wanted 2 more, so I did it again. So I'm out of it now, except fly overs to all my old customers in the remoter areas, (which just happen to be some of the best flying areas ) just to make sure everything is working OK, heck I don't even bill them for this service, go figure!
