[tpxl]

Can you make a purely mechanical solution to the tracking problem, at least along a single axis? If you put a water container on the left and the right side of the solar panels, the one in the sun will get hotter, expand, and that can move the solar panel. It's moving parts and extra cost, but no energy consumption.

I'm no engineer, so I can't determine whether it would work, but on the surface it looks like it should?

[dwild]

I remember a guy in a community that I frequent that build a small trailer that had fixed solar panels, he had build one for a reason I don't remember and afterward some companies were interested and that post was showing his second one he had just sold. It was a bunch of panels on an A frame so essentially one side had awful sun visibility but not the other. People wondered why he did it in such ways, as that meant that half the time they would be useless, why not a moving platform on a central pivot that you can adjust? Well turns out it was cheaper to add panels on the other sides than building a more complex frame that allowed pivot. I'm sure it could have been cheaper to build a system sure (maybe not in his case considering it was on a trailer), but I have an hard time believing the maintenance cost and failure potential is worth it. You can just add more panels... they are starting to become that cheap.