A lot has changed in tracker technology in the past decade, so in upgrading its Alamo plants, OCI Solar Power completely replaced the old tracker with a new state-of-the-art system, all while keeping the plant energized.
Alamo 2 began operating in March 2014, and was originally built with a complex tracker system that moved by way of hydraulic pumps. As mechanical failures become a steady occurrence at both its Alamo 1 and Alamo 2 plants, it was time to upgrade. OCI Solar Power, a utility-scale solar developer based in Texas, United States, served as the EPC to upgrade its 4.4 MW (AC) Alamo 2 solar farm.
The company reached out to Array Technologies, and with some brainstorming, they came up with a plan to remove the old tracker, which was a combination of single- and dual-axis trackers, and replace it with a state-of-the-art system. In 2019 they finished upgrading the 39.2 MW (AC) Alamo 1 plant, and the trick to completing it while keeping the plant energized was to swap out the tracker in sections.