I don't know how common it is, but this is the first time I had seen an announcement of a large solar installation with bifacial modules. I assume that the bifacial modules are more expensive, but I don't know what goes in to the math to make them worth it or not. Does somewhere snowier get more benefit from the bifacial solar arrays because you can get a lot of albedo from the snow?
There seems to be a real interesting mix of pros and cons (total watts generated through the year, by time of day, susceptibility to dirt and hail damage, reflections, etc.), especially with regards to mounting. This guy goes into a lot of detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVO1IyfA9M
Land per sqft is usually a lot more expensive than panels.
Bifacial above ground capture more of solar, esp if the ground reflects solar back.
Many YouTube experiments where people have captured an extra 100-150W from back panels yielding 500W+ per panel.
And bifacial is only slightly more expensive than mono panels. With higher efficiency the price is worth it.
For residential solar with batteries, the price of panels is barely 10% of the cost. Labor, permitting, connectors, inverters, framing take a huge chunk of the cost.
I imagine utility scale has lower overhead but the tradeoff for bifacial would have given positive ROI.
Maybe they will angle the panels differently during the winter so snow falls off, and then the back panel will become more important capturing reflections and low sun.
