Table configuration

The MMS-Table Configuration group appears in Fixed Tilt mode only, and defines the repeating unit the whole plant is tiled from. MMS is the module mounting structure — the racking one table of modules sits on. Choose a Single Axis Tracker mode at launch and this group is replaced, along with the spacing group, by a single tracker group; see Tracker configuration.

Everything here is a count or a gap. The module dimensions come from Module specifications; this group multiplies them out into a table, and the layout then places that table as many times as it fits.

The fields

Orientation

Orientation does not rotate the plant. Rows always run east to west and the tilted face always looks toward the equator. What it changes is which edge of the module is the one running along the row.

Portrait therefore gives a table that is narrow per module and deep up the slope; landscape gives a wide, shallow table for the same module count. Because row pitch is derived from how tall the table stands in its tilt plane, orientation moves the pitch too — see Spacing and tilt.

Table dimensions

The table's two dimensions follow directly from the counts and the gaps:

table width  = modules per row × module E-W dimension
             + (modules per row − 1) × gap between modules E-W

table height = rows per table × module N-S dimension
             + (rows per table − 1) × gap between modules N-S

The gap terms use one fewer than the module count, because gaps sit between modules and not at the ends. Nothing is added for the structure beyond the modules themselves.

A worked example on the defaults

Take the shipped defaults throughout: a 2.38 m by 1.13 m module, Portrait orientation, 28 modules per row, 2 rows per table, and 0.020 m gaps on both axes.

Portrait puts the short side east–west, so the east–west module dimension is 1.13 m and the north–south dimension is 2.38 m.

table width  = 28 × 1.13 + 27 × 0.020
             = 31.64 + 0.54
             = 32.18 m

table height = 2 × 2.38 + 1 × 0.020
             = 4.76 + 0.02
             = 4.78 m

So a default table is 32.18 m across, east to west, and its tilted face measures 4.78 m from the lower edge to the upper edge. It carries 56 modules in two strings of 28. Run your own numbers through the same two lines before trusting a capacity figure — an orientation set the wrong way round is easiest to catch here, at the table, and hardest to catch after the layout has been placed.

Gaps

Three gaps, two of them inside the table and one between tables.

Gap between modules E-W and Gap between modules N-S are the module-to-module clearances the racking needs — clamp space, thermal movement, drainage between rows. Both ship at 0.020 m. They are small numbers that multiply: at 28 modules per row, the east–west gap is applied 27 times.

Gap between MMS-Tables is the clear space left between one table and the next, and ships at 1.0 m. It is east–west only — it separates neighbouring tables within the same row of tables, and nothing else. It is also the figure the cleaning-robot sizing takes as the span of a standard inter-table bridge, so leaving it at a realistic value matters beyond the geometry.

There is no north–south table gap field. North–south separation between one row of tables and the row behind it is the row pitch, derived from tilt and latitude unless you override it. If you are looking for a field to widen the maintenance corridor between rows, it is the pitch override, not a gap.

Rows and strings

One row of modules within a table is one string. Rows per MMS-Table is therefore also the number of strings a full table carries, which is what the inverter or string monitoring box limits are counted against — see Inverters and cables.

At the defaults, a table carries two strings of 28 modules. Changing Modules per row changes the string length and so the string voltage; changing Rows per MMS-Table changes how many strings arrive at each combiner. They are not interchangeable ways of adding capacity.

What the layout does with the table

Once the table is defined, placement is mechanical. The plant boundary is shrunk inward by the perimeter road width to give the usable area; obstructions, transmission line corridors and terrain exclusions are subtracted from it; and the table is then stamped across what is left, one east–west row of tables at a time.

A table is placed only where it fits entirely inside the usable area. A table overlapping the edge by a centimetre is not placed at all, which is why a large table on a ragged boundary can leave more ground empty than a smaller one would. The two options below exist for exactly that case. Placement itself is covered on How placement works.

Maximize placement

Maximize placement ships off. With it off, tables are placed on a regular grid: every row of tables starts from the same east–west origin, so table columns line up across the whole plant.

Tick it and each row of tables is positioned independently, pushed up against the exact edge of the usable area on that row. On a site with diagonal or curved boundaries this fits extra tables into the wedges a regular grid has to leave empty.

Two consequences to accept before you tick it:

• Table columns will not be vertically aligned across rows. Each row sits where it fits, so the plant reads as staggered rather than gridded. That affects cable runs, road planning and how the drawing looks to a construction team.
• Generation takes longer, and noticeably so on a large site, because each row is fitted on its own rather than stamped from one origin.

Both options are covered together, with the placement behaviour drawn out, on Maximize placement and half tables.

Half tables

Add half tables in leftover space ships off. A half table is half the east–west width of a full table, carrying half the strings, and it is dropped into any position where a full table will not fit.

• The dimension that halves is the east–west width, and a half table carries half the strings a full table carries.
• Half tables are reported separately in the summary, in their own column beside the full-table count, and count as half a table wherever tables are weighted.
• Nothing is placed anywhere a full table would already have gone. Half tables only ever occupy leftover ground.

Leave it off for a first pass, so the layout you review is the clean grid case. Turn it on when you are chasing the last of the capacity out of an awkward boundary, and check that the resulting fragments are ones your electrical design can actually pick up.

Where to go next