Pouring of cement piers for photovoltaic panel columns

What is a concrete pier?

There is another mounting method that uses concrete but requires significantly more excavation than narrower, pile-driven foundations: concrete piers. These posts are suspended in holes 12 to 18 in. in diameter, with a depth of 6 to 8 ft., and wet concrete is poured around them.

What is the best foundation support for ground mounted PV arrays?

Drilled concrete piers and driven steel piles have been, and remain the most typical foundation supports for ground mounted PV arrays. However, there has been a push for "out-of-the-box" foundation design options including shallow grade beams, ballast blocks, helical anchors, and ground screws.

How do you anchor a ground mounted solar array?

By Brandon Wronski, Special To Solar Power World Various options exist for anchoring ground mounted solar arrays. These include drilled shaft piles (also called micropiles or caissons), driven piles and helical piers or ground screws.

How to improve the performance of solar photovoltaic systems?

However, it remains vital to devedevelop methods of increasing the performance of solar photovoltaic systems. Solar modules are placed on the roofs of buildings or mounted on solar structures in farms or parks in many countries (i.e., the United States), demonstrating a preference for ground-mount systems .

Are helical piles a good choice for solar array anchoring?

Depending on ground conditions, helical piles can often be shorter in length and therefore cost less in installation time and energy consumption than comparable driven piles or drilled shafts. Some manufactures of helical piles for solar array anchoring assert installation rates as high as 500 piles per day.

Do you need a geotechnical engineer to build a pier/pile?

Both options require hiring a geotechnical engineer to provide the soil design values used to determine the required pier/pile depth for Earth Anchors for PV ground-mounted arrays. The deeper depth requirement also rules out their use on most landfill sites, overleechfields, areas with rocky terrain, and areas with shallow bedrock.