Component
Framed module
A framed photovoltaic module, 4 × 3 cells in this example. The frame is what the mounting system holds, so the frame section matters as much as the cells.
Open the component →DEMO — fictional range. Local brief only, NOT SENT. No personal data is collected or transmitted.
SOLAR MOUNTING / FICTIONAL RANGE
The array is designed for a place, not for a catalogue.
HELIOSPAN is a fictional solar mounting range covering framed modules, extruded mounting rails and mid-clamps. The site is organised around the load case: wind and snow act on a specific site at a specific height, and a mounting system that is adequate in one place is not adequate in another.
Three components, and which one the site decides.
Each component in this range is fixed by something the site supplies rather than by the range itself.
Component
Mounting rail
An extruded aluminium rail with a slot along the top. The section is the specification: it decides the span between supports and the load the array can take.
Open the component →Component
Mid-clamp
A clamp with two wings that bear on the frames of two adjacent modules. It is the smallest part in the array and the one that decides whether the modules stay put.
Open the component →What the site supplies, and the range cannot.
Four numbers that come from the location, the roof and the building rather than from any catalogue.
- Wind speed
- The basic speed for the region, then adjusted for height and exposure
- Snow load
- The ground load for the region, then adjusted for the roof
- Roof zone
- Edge and corner zones take more wind than the field of the roof
- Fixings
- What the roof is made of decides what the array can be fixed to
Why the same array is right in one place and wrong in another.
Because the load is a property of the place. A rail span that holds inland at low level can fail on an exposed roof, and the component has not changed.
What this site cannot tell you.
Whether your array is adequate. That is a structural calculation against the code for your region, carried out by someone qualified to sign it.