When solar tracker systems are engineered for high winds, most designs focus on strength, reinforcement, or control logic. But two of the most dangerous and unpredictable wind threats to tracker stability are often overlooked: directionality and uneven loading.
Many systems still rely on flat or directional stow methods, which assume “ideal” storm conditions with predictable winds, reliable forecasting, and quick response times. However, no storm is ideal; in the field, those assumptions don’t always hold true.
During storms, gusts don’t arrive neatly from one angle. They change direction suddenly, ramp up quickly, and create unbalanced forces across solar modules. These factors can cause module failure at just 70% of the expected, “ideal” wind load – especially if accompanied by hail.
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Download free sample pagesWind is not uniform. And tracker design can’t afford to treat it like it is.
At GameChange Solar, we’ve engineered a better solution: omni-directional stow position that protects trackers no matter which way the wind blows.
What Is Wind Directionality, and How Does It Damage Modules?
Wind is a three-dimensional force, and it doesn’t stay predictable. Wind gusts shift in seconds during hurricanes, cyclones, thunderstorms, and fast-moving fronts. This ability to shift suddenly towards the north, south, east, and west is called wind directionality.
However, traditional approaches like flat or directional stow strategies are optimized for a single direction. When the wind shifts, fixed stow positions introduce structural risk and can even amplify stress by presenting a broader or more vulnerable surface angle. If the system is locked in a fixed directional stow that assumes wind will come from a particular direction, sudden directional changes lead to:
In contrast, our omni-directional stow procedure accounts for wind from any direction, allowing the Genius tracker system to rapidly respond to directional changes and effectively protect modules from their impact. The Genius Tracker™ stows into a pre-determined steep tilt position that helps prevent failure.
By removing reliance on directional positioning during fast-changing weather, Genius Tracker’s omni-directional stow reduces both risk and complexity. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best.
Why GameChange Systems Undergo Quadrant-Based Testing
In addition to lateral directional shifts, wind often blows unevenly across modules. This difference in wind pressure makes one quadrant of a module carry much higher forces than the others, accelerating wear and making the module fail at up to 30% lower wind load than standard wind tests predict.
That’s because, despite the frequency of uneven wind loading, most systems are only wind-tested at the module level. This fails to identify the stress points caused by uneven wind loading, so we test GameChange systems at the more granular quadrant level. Quadrant-based testing captures the uneven forces that panels experience, helping ensure that systems are built to withstand them.
GameChange Solar partners with third-party testing labs to ensure that the Genius tracker system’s design accounts for such unbalanced wind loads. The mechanical load testing performed mirrors real-world differences in loading across module quadrants, helping ensure that our tracker systems can handle 100% of their projected wind load, even with uneven loading.
Our designs are based on a "worst-case-first" engineering philosophy. We assume the wind will shift. We assume it will arrive unpredictably, and we ensure our trackers are already in the safest possible position – before the storm even starts.
