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Photos: Arctech Solar
Day 1 – April 19, 2017
Tracking safety BIG Interview: Bruce Wang, the chief technical officer of Chinese solar tracker company Arctech Solar, discusses the multi-layered approach he takes towards ensuring the company’s trackers are as safe as possible, meet the latest safety standards and perform optimally in even the harshest conditions. SNEC Daily: The advent of safety standards a more comprehensive and scientific manner, for solar trackers will help differentiate more and will help to move the PV tracker industry advanced designs in the industry. Is this why forward. Arctech Solar has been the first tracker company to be certified under IEC62817 and by Fire is a major concern for the new standard. TÜV? How does the Archtech design help avoid Bruce Wang: Yes, Arctech Solar, as a leading potential fire problems? global solar tracker company, has long been ded- Protection against fire hazards is one of the core icated to the development and manufacturing of elements in the new IEC62817 standard. Even for solar tracking systems that boast high reliabil- a tracker system with excellent performance, in ity. This ensures that our trackers’ various per- the case of fire hazard, it will lose its tracking formance indexes are of the highest quality, such functions, as well as its ability to detect changeas maintaining tracking accuracy under a suite able weather and to avoid potential risks. In such of different circumstances, ensuring the strength condition, the system may cease working in the of the mechanical structures against the exter- most disadvantageous position against the wind, nal loads, upholding the capability of avoiding and the fire may ignite the nearby plants and potential risks, and of course, a reduction of the spread out, leading to secondary disasters such as property damage, and even overall energy consumption. All of these performance casualties. “Tracker systems Therefore, Arctech Solar proindexes are thoroughly evaluated by TÜV based on the that all factors causshould have effective poses IEC62817 standards. Arctech ing fire hazards be evaluated Solar obtained the first cer- means of grounding to in this new standard. If nonmaterials are used in tificate for the tracker system ensure the personnel metallic under IEC62817 by cooperatthe system, different flameare protected against retardant levels should be ing with TÜV to perform the tests on the shared test equipconsidered based on the purany potential pose of usage and the dimenment and test platforms. In electric shock” the next phase, Arctech Solar sions of the materials. The and TÜV will have more colpotential fire sources, such as the electrical cabinet, are laboration on the new solar tracker safety standard IEC63104 (which was designed to eliminate fire hazards in their origdrafted by Arctech Solar), on the test equip- inal design parameters. We design all the prodment and methods, and on the human resource ucts from Arctech Solar to an even higher level of exchanges and technical communications. This fire prevention than those measures outlined in will enable us to evaluate the tracker system in the new standard, to ensure fire safety.
Bruce Wang, CTO of Arctech Solar
Electric shock is also a key concern under the new rules. How does the Arctech Solar design help prevent electrical shorts and shocks? The protection from electric shock is related to multiple aspects of the tracker system design. For
example, the relationship between current, voltage and other parameters of the electrical components, the specification of the wires and the winding displacement, the openings and sealing of the electrical control cabinet, and the prevention of the fingers or human body from physically touching the electrical parts. Most importantly, the whole tracking system shall be viewed as a big conductor, and the PV modules, the header boxes, the inverters and the racks are all carrying force electricity. Therefore, the tracker system should have effective and reliable means of grounding to ensure the personnel around the system are protected against any potential electric shock. Mechanical hazards are also an area of improvement that the new standard encourages. How do safe work areas and ergonomics fit into tracker design? Although mechanical hazards do not stand on the top of the list of concerns that frequently bring about the safety issues, they may still cause serious injury and even death, which makes it non-negligible that tracker developers pay heed to these potential hazards. The new standard provides a variety of guidelines on the evaluations and preventions of mechanical hazards, covering human injuries caused by high-speed moving parts, sharp corners, unexpected movements due to power interruptions, or of the system failing to stop in time or in a safe manner, for example.
Different regions and terrains have different climates, such as extremely high or low temperatures, a challenging damp heat environment, or are exposed to the humidity-freeze environment, says Wang.
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tion to these conditions, wind, sand storms and even intense sunlight exposure may be additional factors that suppliers have to concern themselves with when they install a solar tracker system. All of these climatic issues will directly or indirectly cause the failure of the system, especially the control system – including the sensors, control units, exposed cables and terminals, and the enclosure of the control box. Therefore, the new standard outlines the details for a lot of requirements. For example, the protection level of the enclosure shall be no less than IP65, and the whole system must withstand temperatures that range from -400C to 800C. The solar tracker products from Arctech Solar are designed to meet even higher requirements; for example, the protection level of our enclosure is designed to meet IP67.
Potential risk from communications and software failure is also addressed in the new standards. How does the Arctech Solar design protect against such issues? Safety and reliability are two separate aspects, but are closely related. By means of our cloud platform, Arctech Solar performs real-time monitoring on the system and sends out warning messages as soon as any issue occurs. Arctech Solar‘s redundancy design ensures that the system can operate non-stop, which means that if any error occurs in the electrical components, such as the sensor, controlClimactic variations make ler, or motor for example, the some tracker designs bet“Arctech Solar‘s redun- system will send out a warnter for different geograing message to the cloud dancy design ensures platform immediately, and phies. How does the Arctech Solar design perform under that the system can meanwhile will automatisome of the more extreme cally perform a switch-over operate non-stop” conditions? to the backup system. It is a Different regions and terrains requirement of the new stanhave different climates, such dard for the control system as extremely high or low temperatures, a chal- to have this protection of multiple levels, and lenging damp-heat environment, or are exposed it is also the standard feature of Arctech Solar‘s to the humidity-freeze environment. In addi- tracker system.