The solar industry is booming. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA, solar energy has seen an average annual growth rate of 50% for the last decade. Today, more than 242,000 Americans work in the solar industry, which is double the number of workers in 2012. There are more than 10,000 companies in each U.S. state, and the solar industry generated $17 billion for the U.S. economy in 2018 alone.
How’s that for growth?
With all that growth, it’s evident that the solar industry needs powerful tools that can support and uplift solar installers and make their jobs easier, more intuitive, and more efficient. That’s where drones come in.
5 Benefits of Drones for Solar Power
Solar UAVs offer a wide selection of benefits for the renewable energy industry. These include the following:
- Improved Safety. Using drones for PV system inspections are a great way to keep techs and teams safe. To ensure solar farms are operating as efficiently as possible, techs must open combiners and inverters. Unfortunately, having any direct contact with these highly-charged components is very dangerous. Drone inspections, however, can remotely pinpoint faults. This limits exposure and shock risk and keeps techs safe and secure.
- Reduction of Labor Costs. Drones are inexpensive, easy to deploy, and simple to operate. Using them for PV system inspections makes processes more accurate and straightforward than ever before. This, in turn, reduces labor costs and cuts time on-site.
- Increase Efficiencies. UAVs can access any location, which has made them a favorite tool among companies that want to scale their inspection processes. Today, drones make it easy to conduct highly efficient inspections – covering a site and providing high-resolution images in just a few hours.
- Increased Visibility. With a manual inspection, techs do not have the bandwidth to inspect every individual module. This means techs risk overlooking anomalies and essential information. With drones, though, onboard sensors, mapping technologies, and thermal cameras can reduce all issues to a granular level. This provides a more comprehensive visibility and a more in-depth understanding of site status.
- Data Collection. Industrial drone technology has revolutionized data collection. Today, inspectors who use drones can survey a site an average of 10x faster than they could manually. What’s more, the data they collect is more accurate and detailed than data collected manually.
Drone Use Cases: How you can Improve Your Operation With Drones
Whether you’re looking to add drones to your operation or build out your current drone fleet, here are several smart reasons to invest in drones:
- Inspections. UAVs offer real-time data collection and inspection capabilities. Because drones can go anywhere and be outfitted with advanced inspection equipment, they make comprehensive inspections much easier to conduct than ever before.
- Surveying. Equipped with 3D Mapping or Thermal Live Map capabilities, drones can become powerful surveying tools that will help you find, map, and plan your next solar location.
- Accessible, Actionable Data. Data is one of the most significant benefits of working with drones. The data collected by drones is unmatched in its detail and accuracy and is critical for helping teams make informed, intelligent decisions.
- Planning & Assessments. Whether you’re scaling your operation or branching out to a new city or state, drones can simplify planning and assessments and ensure you’re staying one step ahead of the curve.
- Construction Monitoring. Traditionally, it’s been challenging to conduct construction monitoring without investing a considerable amount of time and energy on the part of your workforce. With UAVs, however, you can survey sites around the clock, providing advanced surveillance and keeping your location secure.
- Performance Measurement. Any successful PV operation needs to conduct continuous performance monitoring, and drones can help. Capable of providing thermal readings and zooming in on each panel specifically, drones can help your operation continue running as smoothly as possible.
Drone Nerds Recommended Drones
Curious which drone to add to your fleet? Here are our top recommendations:
- Matrice Series (M200 & M600 Pro). DJI Matrice enterprise drones are our top-selling, high-tech industrial workhorses. These UAVs offer extended flight time, IP43 foul-weather capability, camera flexibility, and full adaptability to SDK development. Ideal for use in engineering, industrial inspection, and broadcasting/filmmaking functions, they also excel in the solar industry.
- Inspire 1. Quadcopters in the DJI Inspire series have been a go-to for film companies for years. Because they’re excellent at generating movies, commercials, industrial videos, websites, and more, they’re a favorite for people who want to elevate creativity and on-the-job performance. The Inspire 1 and Inspire 2 UAVs can conduct industrial inspections of hard-to-access assets, sense and record heat loss in buildings, conduct surveillance, locate disaster victims, and gather data for analysis in smart farm management and solar applications.
- Zenmuse XT Thermal Camera. A drone can go where you can’t, and a Zenmuse FLIR XT camera can record what you can’t see. Zenmuse FLIR XT cameras are the obvious choice for inspecting power lines, solar panels, towers and more. Additional industry uses can be for public safety, construction and agriculture.
- Zenmuse X5. The Zenmuse X5 is the first mirrorless, compact Micro Four Thirds camera in the world. Ideal for recording 4K videos, this is a great aerial imaging tool for the renewable energy industry.
- Drone Deploy. When you use Drone Deploy software, you get highly precise mapping and 3D imagery. No longer are high-resolution mapping and 3D modeling solely the province of the highest-priced, special-purpose commercial drones and aerial cameras. Today, they’re accessible for companies in a variety of industries.
Drone Inspections for Solar Power: the Future of the Solar Industry
The solar industry is moving forward, and drones are right here with it. If you’re in the market for a drone to add to your solar program, contact Drone Nerds today. We’ll walk you through our selection and help you find the right UAVs for you.
