Being installed in just 11% of ground mounted arrays in 2013, tracker application represented only a niche part of the global solar market back in 2013. However in 2015, IHS forecasts tracker application to grow to an impressive 20% of the market.
On the supply side, the market remains dominated by three large players that together comprise 40% of the market. Array Technologies remains the number one supplier, however it lost slightly over 20% market share to rivals. First Solar was the faster growing tracker provider, picking up 8.5% market share on an annual basis. Array Technologies itself remains largely focused on the domestic U.S. market however is pursuing internationalization this year.
IHS has published its findings in its PV Balance of System Equipment 2015 report. It finds that the U.S. continues to be the center of the tracker world, both in terms of supply and demand. The top four tracker suppliers are American companies, IHS has found.
Looking to technology trends, IHS finds that developers with in house tracker technology, such as First Solar and SunPower, are increasingly deploying singe-axis trackers and trend that is expected to continue.
Of the pure-play tracker providers, IHS notes that while it was ranked fifth in 2014, Soitec exited the solar space in Q1, 2015. By contrast Nextracker has been rapidly emerging and being selected by large EPCs including SunEdison.
Not only has Nextracker been a successful preferred supplier of trackers for SunEdison, a leading global EPC player, the company has really embraced the global PV market by shipping its trackers to Chile, Australia and other international markets outside of the United States, said IHS analyst Cormac Gilligan.
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