Key Highlights:
The robotics adoption rate in India has grown significantly in the past 6 years, as over 60% of greenfield projects are currently designed to implement robotics.
The new H4 offers a faster ROI, with minimal infrastructure requirements and quick deployment.
Ecoppia’s validation and testing process applies to the overall product, as well as to individual components such as batteries, wheels, firmware, and microfibers.
Kindly tell us about Ecoppia’s robotic solutions, their key highlights, and how they help deliver peak panel performance.
With nearly a decade of experience in cleaning billions of panels across the world, Ecoppia’s is the world’s leader in robotic cleaning solutions for large-scale utility solar PV. Ecoppia offers a cloud-based platform and a suite of advanced, fully autonomous robots that cost-effectively maximize the performance of utility-scale sites worldwide. With a strong local presence in the Middle East for nearly a decade, and more than 3,700MW of installed projects globally, Ecoppia has been working with the largest IPPS such as TotalEnergies, Azure Power, Actis, Fortum and ReNew Power.
Ecoppia recently launched the H4 for both fixed tilt and Single Axis tracker installations – an innovative waterless robotic cleaning solution, featuring a helix design that prevents heavy dust accumulation with the robot moving horizontally, while the microfiber dusters clean vertically, in a spiral-like motion. The H4 provides an extended cleaning coverage area of up to 2KM as well as bidirectional cleaning, which allows the robot to clean from either side of the row, reducing the time wasted on going back and forth from the docking station. The H4 solution joins Ecoppia’s suite of products together with the E4 and T4 that have already been deployed in more than 30 large scale project in around the globe.
What are the advanced data-driven AI technologies incorporated in your solutions?
Ecoppia provides its clients with a robust data hub, hosted on a cloud-based platform, to allow continuous monitoring and data collection. The hub offers site managers full visibility of data that helps them properly evaluate the sites’ cleaning performance, cleaning availability rates and other cleaning related insights. Ecoppia’s dashboards include data about cleaning times and coverages, weather conditions and other relevant performance insights as well as access to reports that are highlighting relevant takeaways. The ability to view such drilled-down detailed data, enables site owners to fully understand their site operation and maintenance on a daily, monthly, and annual basis.
How does your technology-driven cleaning solution help in lowering LCOE?
The new H4 offers a faster ROI, with minimal infrastructure requirements and quick deployment. It is designed to provide a holistic solution for even the most challenging solar sites while remaining completely safe for the panels and structure, alongside effective, swift, and smart cleaning.
With safety & reliability at its core, Ecoppia is offering a 25-years partnership to IPPs, focusing on providing superb service. While a robotic cleaning solution represents only 1-2% of the overall site Capex, the importance of choosing the right vendor is critical, as sub-performing technology may eventually not be able to effectively and reliably clean for 25 years, or even create damage that can cause a significant loss of money. The lifetime value of the robotic solution chosen should consider spare parts, labor, and other factors that are required for site maintenance while taking into consideration their high availability and performance, as well as minimal risks to the site itself.
How has robotic cleaning technology evolved in India? How do you see this technology evolving in the coming years?
The robotics adoption rate in India has grown significantly in the past 6 years, as over 60% of greenfield projects are currently designed to implement robotics. We see a similar growth trend in brownfield sites with 40% of all brownfield projects expected to install robotic solutions in the next 5 years. For projects that are 50MW and larger, currently Rajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka are the top states in India to adopt robotics.
As projects are built in remote areas, the challenge of how to keep modules free of dust and soiling is already at the forefront – manual labor is simply no longer a sustainable or feasible solution, and so autonomous cleaning is the natural solution for IPPs. Ecoppia’s experience reveals a production increase of 3%-6% on average versus manual cleaning, and up to 32% increase post dust storms events, while the water saving is by itself a critical factor both on the economic side and the sustainability front.
What kind of reliability and warranty can we expect from your products? How about the after-sales support you offer?
Ecoppia has a 3,000m validation center, dedicated to extensive testing. Our validation and testing process applies to the overall product, as well as to individual components such as batteries, wheels, firmware, and microfibers. We test each component individually but also can test multiple conditions at once, and we do not just rely on our research facility – we also run rigorous testing with external laboratories and extensively testing on sites.
Every aspect of the robotic performance is analyzed – from the impact on modules, coating, and structure, to connections between neighboring structures, among other things. Ecoppia’s product design life is over 25 years, as the post-sale support includes a comprehensive annual maintenance contract combined with both scheduled and predictive maintenance.
What is your plan for the next couple of years?
With more than 30 large-scale projects deployed globally, Ecoppia is planning on continuing its expansion to new regions, focusing on providing a perfect fit to the local markets’ needs. With continuous product enhancements, as well as collaboration with the leading market players, Ecoppia will continue to focus its efforts on optimizing its offering to IPPS by providing a tailor-made solution per site – and even per row in the site. For example, In one of SECI sites developed by Azure Power in India, Ecoppia installed the combination of its full product portfolio of the E4, T4 and H4, to cater to the site needs and increase the cost efficiency to the maximum.
