The adoption of commercial drones in the solar industry has led to exciting new opportunities for reducing costs and improving safety and efficiency.
Commercial drones are flexible to use, making them valuable for residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar project surveys. Properly utilizing drones can offer sizable savings on inspections, repairs, maintenance, and more.
The flexibility of drones enables them to be useful right from the very start of a project. Before a solar installation is built, drones can collect data on the landscape of a project site to improve logistical planning. Topographic modelling, soil analysis, and shading assessments of a project site can all be conducted using drones.
The ease and rapidity through which these gadgets collect information for project assessments allow them to be valuable tools in helping optimize a project development plan. Not only are these gadgets much faster than ground teams at collecting information, but the data accuracy is also in no way compromised.
The most salient benefit of using drones in solar is for operations and maintenance.
Solar panels have to be inspected several times a year to ensure their performance is at an optimal rate, to proactively fix any emerging panel problems, and to maintain legal certifications. These maintenance services are often costly, as it requires ground teams to assess the panels individually, which is quite labour-intensive.
For large-scale operations, a common practice is only to inspect a fraction of an installation’s panels, as to attempt to find systemic issues based on small sample size. Neither of these assessment strategies is as reliable or efficient as using drones.
Aerial data surveyance enables the collection of much more data including vegetation growth, erosion, elevation changes, slope orientations, and solar panel alignment. These data can then be tracked and monitored to prevent future disruptions in system performance and ensure power production optimization.
Also, drones allow for easy monitoring of perimeter fencing, ensuring the security of the site remains intact. Large-scale solar projects also require regular inspections of additional infrastructures, such as electric substations, lines, and poles on site, all of which can be done through drones, with substantial benefits.
Eliminating the need for a team of individuals to manually inspect additional infrastructure promotes a safe work environment, and reduces potential liability. This same principle applies to rooftop solar panels, as drones can eliminate the need for individuals to climb rooftops in order to perform assessments.
Electrical infrastructure often has to be shut down for manual assessments, as to allow teams to access equipment safely.
The shutdown process is burdened by a hefty amount of paperwork and red tape. By using drones, the time-consuming shutdown process can be avoided altogether, further reducing delays.
Drones are also useful when filing insurance claims, as damage assessments can be conducted in a timelier manner.
Speeding up insurance claims will be particularly important as the impacts of climate change continue to become more widespread.
Once committed to using drones to improve efficiency, affordability, and safety, the next big question is, what kind of service works best for your company’s needs?
