Terrain Aware Backtracking via Forward Ray Tracing

Trackers with conventional backtracking strategies can incur significant shading and electrical mismatch losses due to the realities of as-built world terrain, and current best methods for slope awareness only account for single slopes in the cross axis and tracker axis directions. Nevados engineering has developed a new methodology for eliminating terrain shading on horizontal single axis tracking solar sites which can handle arbitrary tracker azimuths as well as multiple slopes in any direction, including installations where the slope changes in both the axis and the cross axis directions.