Performance Improvements Through Advanced PV Backtracking on Uneven Terrain

Increases in commercial interest in deploying solar on uneven terrain has prompted intensified development of new backtracking algorithms that consider the impact of terrain on row-to-row shading. Using weather data from Albuquerque, New Mexico, we compare performance gains associated with four backtracking algorithms on a synthetic rolling terrain. We find that a linear programming approach to backtracking leads to annual energy gains of 2.4 – 3.2% relative to the traditional backtracking algorithm baseline. We also find that a backtracking approach which approximates the terrain as constant does not offer significant annual energy gains over the baseline on the synthetic terrain. Our findings suggest that gains from backtracking can be maximized in the study location by considering terrain when selecting a backtracking algorithm.