This project made it to the final round for Solar Builder Magazine’s Project of the Year.

The resident on Glendower Street in Ashland had a strong desire to utilize the sun to supply all of her power needs, along with the security of a battery storage system.

When she inquired with the city and local installers, she was disappointed to learn that roof shading from surrounding trees would prevent her to receive the city’s $.50/W solar incentive (plus she didn’t have enough south-facing roof to fully meet her power goals). She was also informed that time was almost up for the state's residential tax incentives. 

Just then, she happened on an article about the unique elevated dual-axis solar trackers. She contacted Stracker Solar for a rapid Stracker install that rose above the shade of the trees to qualify for full city incentives in time for the sun-setting Oregon $7,500 tax credit.

Start to finish construction for the project was performed in under a week and completed in December 2017.  It has been in continuous operation since.

Stracker Solar has developed a customized Model S1 for this install that has an increased pivot-height to avoid roof conflicts, a manual stow button for parties, and a fail-safe stow battery-backup. The array flat stow direction was rotated 90 degrees after the customer reported that the original position caused rain runoff and produced load noise as it hit the roof rain-gutter system.

The customer is delighted with the great energy production, easy Envoy monitoring and comfortable deck shading from her residential nano-grid.