Solar Panel Inspection Using Drones

For this project a microdrones md4 1000 vertical takeoff and landing drone was chosen with a flight time of up to 88 minutes and payload of 1 2 kilos.

Solar panel inspection using drones.

Inspecting solar farms using drones is not a simple flight task. More installations mean more inspections. The solar industry has seen a rise in using drones for solar panel inspection for the past few years now. Older solar installations typically require 7 9 acres mw while newer installations only need 5 acres mw.

Drones are a powerful tool for solar panel inspections collecting data more than 50x faster than manual methods. Drones are more efficient cost effective and safer for solar panel installations and inspections. In order to inspect a large surface area like this solar field a drone needs to be highly reliable and be able to fly relatively long periods of time without stopping or running out of battery. Using infrared drone technology to inspect solar panels and wind turbines an east coast industrial plant had for months experienced a significant dropoff in energy production from its.

A drone mounted with a thermal camera can fly over pre planned routes covering one section of the solar farm at a time and capturing thermal images along with geospatial metadata. Save time with pre selected way point aerial inspections. Hot spot identification showing defective cells geotagged image. Further drones and the sophisticated software that powers them are transforming operations and management practices for commercial solar companies.

Saving time the system convenience and ease of use help the owners of solar panels to save time in maintenance. Doing high quality maintenance the trained professional drones inspectors are. The same 250 hectares can be covered by drones well within 2 days. Value of drones for solar farm inspections.

The process involves detailed planning and a thorough understanding of the area to be inspected. In addition using drone technology to inspect and do maintenance to solar panels is a great way of. Drones are bringing airborne analytics to utility scale solar operations like pv equipment inspections resulting in strong time and cost savings. Diagnostic purpose planning of panel placement.

The use of drones in the solar industry has taken off rapidly in the past few years. Solar panel installations have grown massively up by 81 in 2019 compared to 2018. Options for plant inspections. Infrared signatures show defective panels.

There are multiple steps required to conduct a successful inspection. Keep the solar farm running at peak efficiency. Rapid and easy scans for roof tops and arrays.