Storing surplus energy, whether derived from renewable sources, nuclear, or fossil fuels, has become a priority for many utilities and power generation companies.

Storing surplus energy, whether derived from renewable sources, nuclear, or fossil fuels, has become a priority for many utilities and power generation companies.
These days, power hungry utilities and large power consuming entities like hyperscale data centers will leverage almost any flat surface, into a clean energy producing platform to generate incremental power or offset energy costs.
At Snake Tray®, we take environmental responsibility seriously. We are committed to manufacturing our products in ways that minimize the impact on the environment. Not only do Snake Tray products and solutions save energy and natural resources to help our clients meet compliance standards for energy-efficient building design, but they are also manufactured using equally high environmental standards.
We’ve been telling solar operators how the Snake Tray Solar Snake Max XL™ system saves money on materials and labor while increasing daily energy harvest by up to 8% over traditional trenching methods, and now we have the numbers to back it up.
Most utility-grade solar plants with hundreds of arrays and thousands of panels are designed in east/west rows to easily follow the path of the sun. From high above, everything appears neat and square. But there’s more to cabling a solar plant than managing the north/south “home run” pathways that carry DC power from the ends of each row to the interconnection point for conversion to AC power.
Our insatiable demand for electricity is forcing utilities and energy providers to build new sources of power. Advances in solar technology combined with falling costs and a push by the federal government for renewable energy has made solar power more popular than ever. Unfortunately, many of the prime locations for high mega-watt solar farms are either gone, too expensive, or not in proximity to growing population centers.
Data centers, especially hyperscale data centers, are power-hungry monsters with an insatiable appetite for electricity. In fact, after buying the land, constructing the building, installing all the racks and servers, and staffing it, the number one operating expense for any data center is utility power. Their carbon footprint is as big, if not bigger, than many manufacturing operations.
Dig a trench end-to-end to bury cables, or dig holes to plant above ground pilings?
Guess where a buried cable failure point may be, or easily access cables for repair and replacement?
Use thicker conductors to compensate for underground de-rate, or carry all the PV energy the array can produce on 50% less cable size?
The National Electric Code (NEC) section 690.110.12 for the mechanical execution of work states, “Electrical equipment shall be installed in a neat and workmanlike manner.” Believe it or not, this is the only current cable management standard for the solar industry in 2019. This is a very subjective definition that is open to liberal interpretation from job to job.