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A new approach for solar involves looking beyond flat landscapes

If you've ever seen a solar farm in person, you'll understand where the "farm" label comes from. They're almost exclusively built on flat surfaces, for obvious reasons; it's more conducive to their construction and provides nearly unlimited angles for the sun. But now, with the industry continuing to grow rapidly worldwide, solar projects are looking for new terrain.

"Between now and 2030, solar energy is expected to dominate the global energy mix with 2.5 terawatts of added capacity," said Chris Bischoff, Managing Director at Sustainability Communication Company, a company based in South Africa, who emailed Electrical Apparatus the information alongside the January 28 press release referenced below. "However, as solar deployment accelerates, new solar farms are having to move into increasingly complex landscapes with challenging topographies. To keep pace with the current deployment rate and to meet global renewable energy targets, design automation tools for solar farms need to be able to integrate terrain awareness into their outputs."

The aforementioned press release, which is from AutoPV and entitled "Meeting the 2.5 Terawatt target: Why design automation is the key to unlocking complex solar landscapes" delves further into the topic at hand.

The global mandate for utility-scale solar is expanding at an unprecedented rate (2.5 terrawatts of utility-scale solar projected in the next four years.) However, with the most accessible flat sites becoming more scarce, new utility-scale solar farms are moving into increasingly complex landscapes. This shift creates a critical technical hurdle: the gap between flat design assumptions and the topographical reality of the ground.

To maintain accuracy in these challenging environments, AutoPV has integrated "terrain adaptation" into its design automation software for utility-scale solar projects. This allows engineers to upload site topography in CSV or XYZ data formats directly into the design engine. By making AutoPV terrain aware, layouts now adapt to real elevation and slope, ensuring that component placement and cable routing follow actual ground conditions from the very first iteration.

For energy engineers, the ability to account for topography early in the design process adds a critical layer of accuracy. When layouts are designed without terrain data, the risk of errors, rework and construction delays increases significantly.