Passive Trackers use the sun's heat to move liquid from side to side inside the tracker, allowing gravity to turn it and follow the sun, using no motors, no gears and no controls to fail. Passive trackers depend on the delicate balance between the shifting weights of Freon canisters.

Upside: Passive trackers cost far less then Active Trackers.
Downside: In cold conditions, the Freon in passive trackers has trouble reaching its boiling point, making the basic tracking function itself sluggish at best.


Active Trackers are guided by an optical sensor -- not affected by cold or wind.

Active Trackers follow the sun across the sky with low-speed motors or linear actuators guided by an electronic light sensor. This guarantees that the plane of your array is always perpendicular to the sun's rays, giving you the maximum power your modules can produce at all times. These highly efficient mechanisms consume minimal amounts of electricity, but the energy gained far outweighs the cost.

Top of Pole Mounts

Top-of-pole mounts are essentially a steel or aluminum rack and rail system bolted or welded on top of a pole. Larger Top of Pole mounts will require a good anchor, which can mean that in soft soil that you may have to dig a hole as much as 7 foot deep to avoid the mounts being turned by the wind.

Ground/roof mounts, as the name implies, are solar panel mounts that can be used either on a roof or on the ground. They have supporting, adjustable legs which allow you to optimize their vertical orientation for solar exposure.