Drones and Artificial Intelligence technology used in surveying solar power plants
1. Unmanned equipment (Drone) combined with thermal imaging camera
In Vietnam, drones with cameras are commonly referred to as flycam, helping technicians save time, effort and cost in the process of checking the construction process. construction and installation of a factory. A basic drone with only flight photography will usually cost between 10 and 50 million dong.
In the field of solar power plant surveying, a dedicated drone combo – camera – thermal sensor is considered to provide high efficiency and accurate error detection. The most common errors detected by a drone with a thermal camera are: the battery absorbs heat poorly due to dust cover, overheating of the panel affects plant performance, errors arising at the string and combiner box. At the present, the complete but quite expensive combo will be the Matrice Series M200 UAV integrated with the DJI Zenmus XT2 thermal sensor and the DJI Zenmus X5S RGB camera, the price for this combo is about 850 million – 950 million VND.
2. Application of Drones in warranty checks
For the warranty check that the investor requires to carefully examine each solar panel of the factory, the aircraft survey is completed in a short time when compared with the manual labor. The screening usually takes a few weeks to take only a day or two. Once all construction data / images have been collected with the aircraft, the technical expert will complete the data analysis and generate a detailed, clear report in just a few days. The process of identifying modules with warranty issues is 1000 times faster.
The data collected by the thermostat also allows you to locate faults in the solar power plant in the modules. Flight equipment that complies with IEC standards allows for air temperature measurement of solar power plants, taking pictures with a resolution of 3cm/pixel to help give specific details in the report and thus the power warranty is still available guaranteed. The higher the thermal image resolution, the greater the accuracy of the error.
3. Artificial Intelligence technology
In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been involved in many different fields because of its importance. However, the definition of this term is very vague. We can generally understand that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that will make and make decisions based on information independently related to the set goals. AI uses the tools of Machine Learning and intelligent behavior automation to analyze and make decisions with high accuracy.
In the renewable energy industry, particularly in the field of solar power, artificial intelligence has made a significant contribution to the operation and management of solar power plants. If a drone’s thermal imaging findings are seen as the tip of the problem, then the root of the problem will be found using AI technology.
By gathering plant area map information, creating software to receive the amount of current data from the SCADA system for one or more months combined with thermal images taken by drones, AI technology will analyze and synthesize, helps find the most accurate errors, abnormalities are not only in the module, string but also in the inverter, cable. Then, analysts will give an effective remedy for the factory.
Currently, in Vietnam, Veneria Energy is the first and only company in conjunction with AVA ASIA Singapore to use AI technology PV360 to help detect errors in strings, combiner boxes, solar panels, etc. cable also provides remedial solutions to increase solar power plant efficiency.
