A flexible solar mounting system is a long-span, high-clearance, and multi-span structure. It uses pre-stressed steel cables tensioned between fixed points at both ends, where the fixed points at the two ends are supported by rigid structures and external diagonal steel strands to provide reaction forces. This system is adaptable to conditions such as undulating mountainous terrain and increased vegetation—only requiring the installation of foundations at appropriate locations and tensioning of pre-stressed steel strands or cables. Under conditions of constant water levels, it can be constructed with rigid columns, foundations, and flexible supports in lakes and fish ponds.
Flexible solar mounting systems are distinctly different from traditional rigid solar mounting systems. They adopt spatial structural technologies involving "suspension, tension, hanging, bracing, and compression," combining flexible suspension cables with rigid struts, supplemented by rigid supports and high-strength ground anchors to form a long-span load-bearing flexible support system.
To ensure the safety of solar panels, our mounting system needs to achieve a "combination of rigidity and flexibility." Here, "rigidity" refers to the end and middle supports: the end supports are located at the left and right ends of the system, providing vertical and horizontal support. When the span is too large, intermediate supports must be installed to prevent excessive deformation in the middle of the "clothesline-like" structure. In this way, the rigid framework of the entire system is established.
However, a rigid framework alone is insufficient. Technically, flexible mounting systems can be roughly divided into several structural types: single-layer suspension cable systems, double-layer cable systems (load-bearing cables + stabilizing cables), more complex reverse-tensioned wind-resistant cable net structures, pre-stressed cable nets, hybrid systems, beam-string (beams, trusses) + cable arches, string-supported domes, and transverse stiffening systems. Currently, the mainstream structural types of long-span pre-stressed suspension flexible mounting systems include key components such as load-bearing cables, module cables, struts between cable trusses, pile columns, side anchoring systems, steel beams, and cable truss struts.
With system characteristics of 3–15 meters in clear height and 10–60 meters in long span, the cable-structured flexible solar mounting system is highly adaptable to complex mountainous terrain, avoiding adverse factors such as undulating mountains and numerous gullies and slopes. At the same time, it fully frees up the space under the panels, enabling the realization of "agriculture-solar complementarity" and "forestry-solar complementarity." While increasing the power generation of solar power plants, it truly maximizes the efficiency of land and space utilization.
Thanks to their advantage of large and flexibly adjustable spans, flexible mounting systems have a wider application scope, including:
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Areas with steep slopes or significant undulations. They are not affected by factors such as vegetation height, and the height of the lower edge of the modules from the ground can be adjusted within 1–7 meters, making them suitable for longer single-row array lengths (column spacing). In actual projects, the longest single-row array length has reached 1,500 meters.
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Fish ponds, tidal flats, and similar areas. Breaking through the limitations of traditional mounting systems—such as water depth and area size—flexible mounting systems leverage their advantage of 10–30 meter long-span solutions, and can also adopt schemes such as adding additional support columns in the middle. This solves the difficulties of construction and installation faced by traditional mounting systems in fish ponds, tidal flats, and other regions.
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The tops of large water tanks in sewage treatment plants. Due to the requirements of water treatment processes in sewage plants, mounting system foundations cannot be installed inside large water tanks. Flexible mounting systems skillfully avoid this difficulty, making it possible to construct solar power plants on the water tanks of sewage treatment plants.
Compared with traditional steel mounting systems, flexible solar mounting systems use flexible materials (such as polymer materials and glass fiber-reinforced materials) as support structures to replace traditional steel supports. This makes solar modules more flexible and reliable while enabling adaptation to more complex and changeable sites and environments. As a new type of solar mounting system, flexible mounts offer numerous advantages over traditional rigid mounts:
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Strong adaptability: Flexible mounts can adapt not only to various topographies (such as mountainous areas, hills, and plains) but also to diverse climatic conditions (such as low temperature, high temperature, humidity, and dryness).
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Low installation and maintenance costs: Compared with traditional steel mounts, flexible mounts use less steel, enabling simpler and faster installation, as well as lower maintenance costs.
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Improved photoelectric conversion efficiency: Flexible mounts can reduce gaps between solar modules and increase the installation density of modules, thereby improving photoelectric conversion efficiency.
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High wind resistance: By using flexible materials as support structures, flexible mounts possess good flexibility and wind resistance, maintaining stability even under harsh weather conditions.
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Eco-friendliness: Manufactured using renewable materials, flexible mounts have minimal environmental impact throughout their life cycle, better aligning with the requirements of modern society for ecological environmental protection.
As technology matures further, the application of flexible mounts will gradually be standardized, products will become more reliable, and development will move toward greater safety, cost-effectiveness, and durability.
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