October 25th, 2021 - TrinaTracker, a leading tracker manufacturer and business unit of Trina Solar Co., Ltd. (SHA:688599), explained the implementation of innovative solutions to increase tracker system lifecycle reliability and reduce operating and maintenance costs in a webinar titled "Tracker Development Solutions that Increase Reliability and Reduce Operation and Maintenance Costs". The webinar introduced and illustrated the content of the latest TrinaTracker white paper.
TrinaTracker discussed how the company's "Design for Assembly and Maintenance" approach resulted in more efficient and less resource-intensive operations and maintenance requirements, reducing OPEX costs and risk of energy loss due to the plant downtime that occurs during the implementation of repair and replacing tasks.
Additionally, TrinaTracker emphasized the importance of preventive design as key to reducing failure rate and quality standards crucial to achieving nonstop operation. In the webinar, Álvaro Gallegos, TrinaTracker Head of Project Management, Andrew Gilhooly, Head of TrinaTracker and Utility Solution Sales for Trina in Asia Pacific and Felix Sabando, TrinaTracker Support Structure Research and Development Senior Manager, expounded on how TrinaTracker achieved a considerable reduction in failure rates with the new optimized tracker designs of Agile 1P and Vanguard 2P that incorporated up to a 33% reduction in component count. Both presenters emphasized how reducing parts leads to an overall decrease in failure rates and operation and maintenance costs.
Steve Caldwell, Senior Project Manager at Enzen, provided valuable insights gathered from his broad experience in taking innovative approaches to operating and maintaining a vast capacity of renewable generator deployments, both in Australia and also provided learnings from Enzen’s worldwide Asset Management experience.
The speakers also discussed the smart O&M innovative solutions including compatible mainstream cleaning robots and the proprietary TrinaTracker SCADA system.
Gallegos stated: "TrinaTracker has always focused on increasing the trackers’ reliability and facilitating O&M activities to clients, aiming its resources to reduce failure rate and achieve optimum energy production. TrinaTracker's own internal validation methodology establishes strict testing to ratify the components' high-quality standards. The components do not receive internal validation until they proved to achieve the targeted failure rate established for each one"
Gilhooly commented: “For solar asset owners to attain lowest LCOE, the highest long term energy outcome needs to be realised, and this is inextricably linked to ensuring the tracker technology employed is both reliable yet cost effective to maintain. TrinaTracker employs a whole of life approach during design to ensure maximum product reliability and employs innovative solutions to minimise O&M opex spend in service for our customers.”
Caldwell said: "In a transitional world that is approaching a paradigm shift in energy production, the renewables market is a competitive jungle. I have found that focusing on some basic principles will inevitably lead to market leadership. Firstly, understand the industry best practices; secondly, match performance against that standard; and thirdly, identify areas of opportunity to optimize the offering. OPEX is one such area"
To watch the webinar “Tracker Development Solutions that Increase Reliability and Reduce Operation Costs” and download the related white paper, please click here.
For more information about TrinaTracker, please visit https://www.trinasolar.com/en-glb/our-company.