The Spanish engineering and manufacturing company of photovoltaic structures, Esasolar, has developed ESAblock, the first system in the world that protects solar trackers installed in the photovoltaic plants from the wind. This pioneering system guarantees the stability of the solar trackers and avoids the effect known as galloping or fluttering at any wind speed.
The Galloping or fluttering effect is an aeroelastic instability caused by the wind that is characterized for causing great amplitude oscillations in the tracker structures, producing a movement that can end with its collapse, literally making the structures and the photovoltaic panels that support it fly.
Esablock technology solves one of the great problems faced by large photovoltaic energy installations: the wind. The system guarantees their protection against it.
Wind gusts, even at normal and moderate speeds, can generate instabilities in photovoltaic structures and damage them, something that happens much more often than is desirable and that has a very negative influence on the performance and profitability of photovoltaic plants, which, in addition to the reparation costs, are forced to stop, either partially or completely their activity, which has a negative effect on the production of electricity and its profit.
As Antonio Jesús Martín Nuñez, technical director of Esasolar explains, “so far, with the protection systems available on the market, they only begin to work when the wind exceeds the working speed of the tracker, which, generally, is usually lower than 75 Km / h. It often happens that, at lower wind speeds, the catastrophic effects of Galloping or Flutter can occur, even with the traditional protection system activated”.
As a catastrophic example of this effect, the technical director of Esasolar mentions the Tacoma bridge case in the US, which collapsed in 1940 because moderate-speed winds produced an aerolastic flap that coincided with the natural frequency of the bridge, causing its collapse.
According to the general director of Esasolar, José Antonio Maldonado, the great contribution of this system is that it combines the versatility and efficiency of solar trackers (structures that move to orientate themselves towards the sun) with the safety of fixed structures, which always remain in the same place and position.
“Our technology – explains Maldonado – allows the structure to move in order to follow the sun, but once it has reached its new position it stops and it blocks itself as if it were a fixed structure, which is not affected by the wind; This means that it is always protected and safe, and makes the wind just one more environmental factor, but not a risk ”.
Innovation: a key element for the Spanish photovoltaic sector development
The development of ESAblock technology, which has been developed in the company’s research center in La Roda de Andalucía (Sevilla), is an example of the company’s innovation philosophy that characterizes Esasolar.
As Maldonado highlights, Spanish companies have an extraordinary opportunity to lead the solar world energy market by contributing with their innovation and knowledge capacity along with their extensive experience. “It is not only about benefiting of the advantages that photovoltaic energy can have in our country by the installation of photovoltaic facilities, but also, it is about using our knowledge to lead the world market and to offer our technologies, products and services to build photovoltaic installations all over the world”.
Esasolar is a Spanish company, an international leader in the designing, manufacturing and supply of photovoltaic solar structures and trackers. With offices in Madrid, Sevilla and La Roda de Andalucía (Sevilla). It also has a research center in the latter location where solutions are developed that will be supplied to clients all around the world.
Esasolar’s added value is present on its strong vocation for innovation, research and development, as well as its ability to adapt and customize its proposed solutions in all projects to the needs of each client.
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