Solar Panel Inspection Using Drones

First the inspection team needs to confirm the dimensions of the solar farm before they can prepare an effective plan.

Solar panel inspection using drones.

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. 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. Saving time the system convenience and ease of use help the owners of solar panels to save time in maintenance. Further drones and the sophisticated software that powers them are transforming operations and management practices for commercial solar companies.

Doing high quality maintenance the trained professional drones inspectors are. Save time with pre selected way point aerial inspections. Keep the solar farm running at peak efficiency. Inspecting solar farms using drones is not a simple flight task.

Pricing solar farm inspections drone service providers think in terms of acres but solar asset managers pay for services by the megawatt mw. Drones are more efficient cost effective and safer for solar panel installations and inspections. Drones are a powerful tool for solar panel inspections collecting data more than 50x faster than manual methods. The same 250 hectares can be covered by drones well within 2 days.

Value of drones for solar farm inspections. In addition using drone technology to inspect and do maintenance to solar panels is a great way of. 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. The solar industry has seen a rise in using drones for solar panel inspection for the past few years now.

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. Older solar installations typically require 7 9 acres mw while newer installations only need 5 acres mw. Diagnostic purpose planning of panel placement. Real life applications for solar panel inspection drones many industries are beginning to use drones to dramatically improve their workload.

Hot spot identification showing defective cells geotagged image. More installations mean more inspections. Infrared signatures show defective panels. There are multiple steps required to conduct a successful inspection.

Solar panel installations have grown massively up by 81 in 2019 compared to 2018. The process involves detailed planning and a thorough understanding of the area to be inspected. The use of drones in the solar industry has taken off rapidly in the past few years.