Ground-Mount Solar Array

Key skillsets used for this project:

• Advanced use of Geometry Nodes
• Lighting
• Texturing
• Usage of multiple rendering engines

This project is meant to replicate the look of a typical utility-scale ground-mount solar array.

The challenge was to create a procedurally generated array that would follow the curvature of any terrain placed underneath it.

This was accomplished using Geometry Nodes to raycast points on a line onto the below terrain. Piers, purlins, and panels then use those raycasted points as a reference.

The grass was also made using a simpler Geometry Node setup to randomly distribute, scale, and rotate three patches of low-resolution grass geometry across the terrain.

Images for this project were rendered using the Cycles engine, which provides global illumnination with raytraced lighting.

The animated video was made by rendering with the Eevee engine, which provides more basic shadows and lighting but much faster render times.

The video at the bottom of this page shows a demonstration of the Node Tree functionality by moving the terrain underneath the array and also transforming the entire array procedurally.