Customer Hub: Frequently Asked Questions
General Questions
Find answers to general questions about your Tracker, including basic information on how your Tracker operates.
AllEarth Solar Trackers are engineered and produced sustainably at our net-positive headquarters in Bristol, Vermont.
The system is powered with electricity from the electrical panel in the house. Very little power is required for tracking, and the system uses less than 1% of the energy it produces.
You can view your Tracker’s energy production by visiting the Production Report and typing in your Site ID. Don’t know your site ID? Contact us here.
AllEarth stands behind our Trackers and are confident that they are the most reliable dual-axis systems available today. We back this up with our limited warranty covering defects in materials or workmanship. You can view our Limited Warranty here.
A GPS unit inside the tracker control box knows the tracker’s location as well as the time. Given its location and the time, the tracker knows exactly where the sun is at any given moment. The Tracker uses its hydraulic drive to position the array to directly face the sun. As the sun moves, the tracker will periodically reposition the array. It is not dependent on clock time for any particular time zone, and thus will not be impacted by any weather events or the change to daylight savings time.
The Tracker does not need to be adjusted for time changes in the spring or fall. The tracker tracks based on “universal time,” and is unaffected by any changing of clock times.
The Tracker uses standard hydraulic fluid in its hydraulic system to make it move. The motor that runs the system makes about as much noise as your refrigerator.
Certainly! You can mow under your Tracker, but if you are using a riding lawn mower or tractor, it’s best to put the tracker flat by following the instructions on how to put your Tracker flat to avoid any potential damage to your Tracker.
Our Trackers will continue to produce energy, rainy or shine. Solar generation, will, of course, be lower on grey and rainy days than sunny days. If it’s a very grey/rainy month, it’s likely the Tracker’s production will not fully meet your monthly kWh energy needs. In this case, if your trackers produced more solar kWh of energy than you used in the previous months/year, you will likely have monetary credits, called “net metering credits”, which appear on your utility bill, and will apply against any potential energy charges owed to your utility for that month.
Our Tracker is designed to work independent of any outside input. A communication module may be installed in your house or business to relay detailed tracker data to AllEarth Renewables to assist with tracker diagnostics if necessary. The tracker “talks” to the communication module by radio frequency, and the communication module relays tracking data to AllEarth via an internet connection.
Maintenance
Learn how to maintain your tracker and ensure you are protected in the off-chance that something goes wrong.
AllEarth provides L&M (labor and maintenance) services for all of our Vermont customers. When you purchase a solar tracker system, you receive 1 year of free L&M services. After the first year, you will need to sign up for our 5-year or 1-year O&M services plan to continue receiving these services.
Your first year is free! After that, someone will contact you to see if you are interested in purchasing a 5-year service agreement for regular maintenance of your Tracker by our experienced team.
There are a few simple ways to check that the tracker system is working:
1. Observe the system in daylight to verify and watch that the tracker is moving every 6-10 minutes. At night, your tracker should be parked flat in “safe mode.”This assures that the tracker motor is functioning.
2. Your Tracker’s UCC, when communicating, allows both you and AllEarth to track the daily, monthly and annual kWh production of your tracker. You can check your tracker’s solar generation online via the Energy Reports page. If there’s no data, this could either mean that your UCC is not online/communicating, or the tracker isn’t producing.
3. Regularly review your monthly electric bill.
See the How to Care for your Tracker section of the Customer Hub.
Troubleshooting
What if your tracker is acting ‘funny’? Learn about the root causes of common issues that occur, and how to solve them.
Remember that your Tracker is designed to only move a small distance every few minutes, so it may be between moves. If the tracker is flat during the day, it may be due to high winds, sub-zero temperatures or other factors that have caused it to go into “safe mode”. Once the tracker exits safe mode, it can take up to 20 minutes to run through the reset process.
If you catch your tracker in a flat, horizontally oriented position, you may easily think something like, “My tracker’s not working!” Chances are very high, however, that it’s working exactly as it should. If it has been particularly windy or cold, your tracker is likely in “Wind Hold Mode” or “Cold Mode.” Our AllEarth dual-axis solar trackers are equipped with a control box and wind sensor (anemometer) which are used to keep track of the surrounding wind speeds and temperature, activating “Wind Hold Mode” or “Cold Mode” when needed. Wind Hold Mode is triggered when the wind sensor recognizes wind speeds exceeding 25 mph for 5 seconds. At this point, the tracker goes into a horizontal “stow” position to protect itself from the high winds, in the same way we’d seek shelter when outside during a storm. Even during Wind Hold Mode, the tracker will continue to produce energy.
Cold Mode, on the other hand, is activated to protect the solar tracker’s hydraulic power unit (HPU) which is responsible for moving the solar array. Arctic temperatures can potentially exert strain on hydraulic components and may temporarily reduce tracking accuracy. To reduce this risk, the tracker enters Cold Mode in extreme, sub-zero temperatures. In Cold Mode, the Tracker will go into the horizontal stow position. When temperatures warm up to around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, the tracker will rotate and tilt into position and resume normal operation. Just as in Wind Hold Mode, the tracker continues to produce when in Cold Mode. Production will be reduced during this period, depending on weather conditions, but the time during a year that a tracker is commonly in code mode is very short, so the overall impact this has on total production during a year is minimal. In fact, another positive of trackers being flat on days with clouds (low sun intensity) is that they can produce more energy from the diffuse sunlight. Pointing straight up captures a larger area of low energy sunlight. The tracker’s blend of sophistication and reliability is what allows a tracker to achieve significant gains in efficiency when compared with fixed roof or ground-mounted systems. It’s also what gives a tracker some of its personality and life. But along with this complexity comes the need to preserve and protect that producing capacity during extreme weather conditions. As humans, we do things like bundling up in warm clothes, sitting next to a fire, gathering indoors, etc., to insulate ourselves from the cold and wind. Our trackers are designed to protect themselves as well by using these two modes. Between these built-in functions and an active O&M (Operations & Maintenance) agreement from AllEarth, your Tracker is well insured for the long term.
When the power is shut off, the tracker will not move or produce any electricity. There’s no need to do anything to the tracker once power is restored. When power is restored, the tracker automatically resets, reorients itself to point at the sun and starts producing electricity. In addition, if the grid power were to go down the inverter automatically shuts down to protect the system and its connection to the grid.
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The first thing to know is that even if your tracker is slightly out of optimal alignment with the sun, it will still create power. In fact, as long as it is within 10° of correct orientation it will still produce 99% of the potential energy. Each night the tracker goes back to “safe mode” and will adjust alignment the following day.
When the power comes back on, the Tracker goes through a process to reorient and reposition itself.<br>This involves moving to the flat (safe mode) position to reorient the tilt angle and then slowly spinning<br>around to confirm the yaw angle. This process typically takes just a few minutes, but may take up to 20 minutes.
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The easiest way to position your Tracker to be flat is to turn off the power at the load center on the tracker mast. There are two breakers on the system. The 40 Amp circuit controls the power to the Inverter. The 15 Amp circuit controls power to the motor/controls. Step one is to turn off the 15 Amp breaker. Step two is to wait a minute and then turn the system back on. This will then cause the system to reset. During the reset process, the panels will move to the safe mode position and lay flat. At this time turn the power off (using the same 15 Amp breaker) and they will stay in this position. When you want them to start moving again, turn the power back on.
When the tracker stores itself flat overnight, it will naturally wake up at sunrise and resume normal operation. If the tracker has been flat due to high winds or extreme cold, the tracker will resume normal operation on its own after winds subside (three hours) or temperatures warm up slightly.