Fig. 3
From: A harmonized dataset of ground-mounted solar energy in the US with enhanced metadata
Conceptual hierarchical system boundaries and solar panel-row metadata logic. Green boundaries indicate the conceptual boundary for each term. This study reports on the geospatial and temporal characteristics of panel-rows and arrays. A panel-row is a spatially unique collection of one or more panel-assemblies connected by proximity and often sharing one mount, but not necessarily electrically connected. An array is composed of one or more adjacent rows of the same installation year, and the row-spacing between them. The cell, panel, assembly, and project are not the system boundaries focused on in this study. The ratio of the long-edge to the short-edge is the L/W ratio. Note that these conceptual system boundaries represent crystalline-silicon solar PV. Thin-film and CSP panel-rows tend to present spatially similar patterns at the panel-row and array level but differ in their internal system components.
