Terra Drone Co., Ltd conducted an inspection on a spring tree solar power plant owned by Looop Inc, Japanese solar energy equipment supplier, using a drone equipped with an infrared camera. This is the first time that Looop conducted an infrared camera inspection by a drone. The spring tree solar power plant is located in Japan with an output of 8.8 MW, and a site area of approximately 150,000 square meters with more than 30,000 solar panel units.
At the Looop, previous inspections were conducted by workers who took a portable infrared camera and took pictures of each panel one by one to identify any defective panels. This process took a huge amount of time and labour to test and detect all the panels.
《Hot Spots in Solar Cells》
Terra Drone can complete this task faster, because the drone is equipped with an infrared camera which makes it possible to conduct a wide range of surveys at the same time as compared with infrared inspection from the ground at one time and it is possible to reduce costs and drastically shorten the investigation time. Terra Drones has done numerous of projects, so we have a know-how to perform periodic panel inspections of Spring tree solar power plants.
Looop ground inspections requires manpower of 12 people per day, but the drone infrared method only requires manpower of 4 people per day. Labour cost can be reduced to one third via Terra Drone. It is further noted, ground inspections involved workers climbing ladders to test and detect faulty panels, one issue with this method is that this impact the angle of the infrared camera, as the picture becomes shallower on the upper panel, this means testing can result in error.
On the other hand, the infrared camera on drone is an advantage of freely changing angle, which avoid the infrared reflection of the panel surface.
Our Terra drone conducts laser surveying for solving EPC tasks. Also, using drone for infrared cameras photography in all hotspot inspection, panel installation, and mega solar O & M task. We focused to further improving operational efficiency and accuracy to the customers.
