Trina Solar to Launch New Tracker at Green Energy Expo, South Korea

Chinese photovoltaics firm Trina Solar will be exhibiting its new tracker at Green Energy Expo in Daegu to be held between 12-14 April. The firm will employ the platform to announce the launch of the second generation of its TrinaTracker Vanguard 2P tracker. Following the successful announcement of TrinaTracker’s selection by Samsung C&T on the 875MW Qatar Energy project, Trina Solar is exhibiting the next generation of Vanguard 2P Tracker at the Green Energy Expo in South Korea.

“Trina Solar has been in business for more than 25 years and we are synonymous with solar modules, but in response to market demand – especially for truly integrated solar solutions – we decided a few years ago to expand our product offering, to take a unique leadership position in the industry and become the only solar module manufacturer that can provide an integrative module and tracker solution,” says Andrew Gilhooly, Head of Utility, Commercial and Industrial Solutions for Trina Solar Asia Pacific.

Besides solar modules and trackers, Trina Solar is set to now expand its solution offering to actively promote in South Korea its vertically integrated “Elementa” battery energy storage solution.

Offering an integrated solution – that includes the modules, trackers and energy storage – is important to customers here in South Korea, says Gilhooly. “South Korea is a very important market for Trina Solar, we find a real alignment with Trina as it’s an advanced and sophisticated market that appreciates the latest technology coming as a one stop shop solution from the industry’s most bankable brand,” he adds.

Vanguard 2P second generation tracker

The first-generation tracker was powered by a single electric motor which operated multiple drive points through a mechanical drivetrain, but the second-generation tracker has multiple motors to reduce installation and maintenance time, improve uptime and ensure perfect tracking synchronisation at all times.

Gilhooly says, “The Vanguard 2P second generation tracker achieves the perfect angle alignment through the mechanical action of three actuators powered by individual motors, significantly reducing the number of mechanical parts,” making the tracker quicker and easier to install, and reducing maintenance costs over the product’s lifecycle.

The new generation Vanguard 2P tracker has undergone extensive wind tunnel tests and has the same industry leading low pile count – as low as seven – per tracker or one hundred per MegaWatt peak as the earlier generation module, contributing to typically one to two cents per Watt peak lower balance of system (BOS) costs, especially on sites with challenging geotechnical properties, like rocky sites requiring concrete, or cohesiveless soils requiring deeper embedment to three or even four metres like on our projects in New Zealand.

The tracker is designed to withstand difficult weather conditions: high heat and humidity, extreme cold temperatures, flood inundation, heavy snow loads and high winds – and even cyclonic winds with our 1P Vanguard tracker. The shorter and wider form factor of TrinaTracker’s 2P Vanguard tracker, in combination with its patented spherical bearings, enables sites with extremely uneven terrain, as commonly found in South East Asia and South Korea, to deploy trackers with minimal civils and grading costs. It includes the TrinaTracker ‘SuperTrack’ algorithm that optimizes the panel tilt – to maximize light absorption and electricity generation – using topographical and machine learning from real time data on weather and inter row shading to achieve a further 3-8% energy gain.  This can restore the overall advantage of tracking with bifacial modules back to +15 to 20% even in lower direct irradiance tropical regions in the equator and South East Asia, or even at higher latitudes including South Korea, where we find even considering the higher relative cost of land acquisition, the combination of intelligent tracking with bifacial modules can reduce LCOE by 4% and significantly boost project IRR for investors.

The Vanguard 2P tracker and modules come with TrinaTracker’s SmartCloud SCADA system so operations and maintenance diagnostics can be performed remotely in real time.

Besides the second-generation tracker, Trina Solar is showcasing the company’s n-type solar technology at this week’s Green Energy Expo in Daegu. The n-type technology delivers more power generation and offers an alternative for the next-generation of solar projects in South Korea as the country mobilizes to meet its ambitious renewable energy targets.

Vertex N

At the Green Energy Expo, Trina Solar will display its Vertex N. This bifacial dual glass module, that uses n-type technology, has maximum efficiency of 22.4% and maximum power output of 695W.

The other n-type module on display will be the Vertex S+. This mono-facial dual-glass module; designed for residential, commercial and industrial applications; has power output up to 445W and efficiency up to 22.3%.

Trina Solar says its Vertex modules use larger-size solar cells, 210mm-long, that inherently generate more power than earlier generation, smaller-size cells. The company’s solar modules incorporate other market-leading technologies, such as: multi-busbar (MBB) for greater light absorption; non-destructive cutting for better mechanical performance; and high-density packing to maximize the surface area.

p-type technology modules

Trina Solar will also be exhibiting its proven p-type technology modules. There will be the Vertex DEG21C.20, a bifacial dual-glass module that has power output up to 665W and efficiency up to 21.4%. The bifacial p-type module, designed for utility-scale projects, uses 210mm-long solar cells and has a low voltage and high string power design, delivering lower balance of system (BOS) and a lower-levelized cost of energy (LCOE). There will also be the Vertex (DEG20C.20), a bifacial dual-glass p-type module that has maximum efficiency of 21.4% and maximum power output of 605W.

South Korea Energy Market

 South Korea is the fifth largest market in Asia Pacific for solar energy. South Korea’s solar energy capacity grew 15% last year to 20,975MW from 18,161MW, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).