As we are a research center we wanted to look at solar photovoltaic systems to determine their outputs in summer versus winter in our arctic climate as well as to determine the payback period. We have a 10 KW system consisting of four arrays that track the sun, it’s tied to our electrical grid and our utility pays us for the power we generate. The payback period for our system was calculated at 9 years but everything depends with variable installation costs, electricity costs, and tax credits. Over the course of operating the system we discovered, too, that while the upfront cost of the system with trackers is higher than without, they gathered more energy and paid back in the same amount of time as a non-tracking system.