Drones can replace manual solar maintenance, says report
The paper, from American based firm the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), argues that replacing “costly” truck rolls, which are priced between approximately $300 and $600 (£200 and £400 respectively), could support an entirely new approach to how work is carried out on large solar farms, which make-up around 45 per cent of global systems.
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) have been tested by US companies First Solar and SolarCity according to the report, with their potential capabilities including the ability to carry out panel inspections quicker than manual methods; flexibility in deployment due to low operational costs; increased accuracy and greater access to all panels in a system.
The study cites certain challenges that must be addressed by the new technology such as the UAS’ novelty and public safety, privacy and liability, which have led both federal and state government to voice concerns over the use of drones within large-scale solar projects.
UAS’, which have historically been used for military applications, are now widely available, with the EPRI report claiming that existing models could be easily used for solar maintenance purposes.
“In general, the importance of operation and maintenance is increasingly being recognized, especially for multi-MW systems, as a means for avoiding unplanned plant downtimes and associated revenue losses caused by undetected module, inverter, or connection failures,” the EPRI writes.
“But conventional preventative maintenance approaches, which entail periodic inspections to proactively prevent major breakdowns, tend to be both tedious and costly, making frequent and comprehensive inspections of large systems infeasible.”
“UAS have the potential to improve and expand upon traditional operation and maintenance practices that are labour intensive, relatively costly, and often inefficient.”
According to the paper, drones would also be able to perform thermal imaging to see where excess heat is degrading PV performance at a level of accuracy that is not feasible for the current method of helicopter and airplane fly-over’s.
Critics of the technology cite the issue of operating the drones out of the line of sight, states the EPRI paper, with research into the technology’s potential pitfalls in its early stages.
