Drone Based Solar Inspection In India
As a part of Leading Drone company (GarudaUAV ) of India, I would like to give you some brief about Solar Inspection.
About the Solar Industry
Continuous growth of the solar industry brings an ever-expanding base of solar installations. Quality assurance is of fundamental importance for solar panels as they are expected to provide a life of 20 years. The failure-free operation of the panels is a prerequisite for efficient power generation, long life, and a high return on investment. This is often not the case with myriad of solar panel manufacturers supplying products of varying quality. Over time, solar panels may develop defects which can be easily fixed if detected in time, but can cause a severe drop in energy production and in some cases even start a fire if left unchecked.
Performance declines as solar cells degrade due to unavoidable circumstances
- UV exposure
- Thermal cycling
- Damp heat
- Humidity freeze
- Solar panels degrade about 0.5% to 3% each year
Solar Panel Array Inspections
Cells become negatively biased and instead of producing electrical energy they produce heat energy due to:
- Cell failure
- Interconnection failure
- Melting of solder
- Degradation of the solar cell
- Decrease of operational efficiency
- Potential problem areas can be detected and repaired
Why are we doing this ?
Any defects in the solar panel like swirl defect, cell defects (scratched, cracked or broken cell) or dirt upon the surface area of photo voltaic cell results in hot places/hot spots which in turn produce heat. It is inconvenient to inspect, monitor and maintain large scale solar power plant through traditional methods like point to point inspection or any other manual inspection methods. UAV inspection forms an essential part of quality control methodology and periodic maintenance schedules. The cutting edge UAV technology at GarudaUAV which is one of the best drone companies in India provides an efficient method of validating new installations and helps to maintain maximum operational output from Data.
One should have compact sets of high class thermal imaging; Geo tagged high resolution camera and control elements to inspect quickly a large area of the power plant. Thermal imaging detects defective panel cells, connection points and complete arrays that form individual electrical phases. During the flight we can control and monitor live images to produce fully radiometric data which will be the primary raw data. The data are further processed and analyzed by our specialist at our platform.
Now aerial infrared imaging linked to high definition image capture for inspection of photo voltaic modules are widely accepted. It is an easy, safe, less time consuming and efficient way of inspection. The exponential growth and use of solar energy creates a challenge of proper maintenance and inspection for its proper functioning. Companies have to manage their assets as well as maximize the outcome. In case of big plant, it is quite infeasible and time taking to inspect each cell manually and summarize the report. Finding the root cause and the location of damage cell is challenging through physical inspection.
Now, UAVs reduces this infeasibility, cost and numbers of hours for solar power plant inspection.
Through the light weight thermal sensors mounted on UAV, the difference between defected panel and proper functioning can be identified through software and experts as defected panel create more heat. Thermal experts deal with the pattern of heat structure and the team further make final report within small period of time in an efficient and structured manner that help solar form to run at its peak frequency.
Conclusion
Advantages of thermal imaging
- Drones with a thermal camera can scan installed solar panels during normal operation
- Scan large areas with short time frame
- Potential problem areas can be detected and repaired
Efficiencies of Drones in Solar Farm Inspections
- Utilizing UAV will typically reduce cost of inspections by approximately 30–50%
- Speed of inspection time is greatly improved
- Safety of personnel is improved as there is less need for personnel to ascend to height for inspections in the case of elevated arrays
Avoid Costly Mistakes
- A single malfunctioning cell can compromise the entire system causing economic damage
- Effective maintenance of the system is required to obtain the best possible performance and better return on investment
Keep the solar farm running at peak efficiency
