Leadership and Values: A Conversation with Aplos Ventures’ Founder on Innovation and Sustainability – Basant K Jain Founder Aplos Ventures Private Limited

Can you provide an overview of Aplos Ventures and its mission in the Indian solar energy market? How did the idea for solar robotic cleaning solutions come about?

Aplos Ventures Private Limited (AVPL) is a pioneering company, co-founded by senior professionals from a leading Solar IPP & EPC giant, that specializes in designing and developing innovative robotic systems for the cleaning of solar panels. Our mission revolves around revolutionizing the Indian solar energy market by offering advanced, efficient, intelligent solutions that enhance the performance and longevity of solar installations with a vision to help harness clean energy to its fullest potential and reduce the overall cost of cleaning. AVPL is invested in by a global climate fund and has its Head Office and R&D center situated in an MIDC area near Mumbai.

Our journey began by recognizing the challenges faced by solar energy producers in maintaining the optimal efficiency of their solar panels. Factors such as dust, dirt, and other environmental elements have a substantial impact on energy output, leading to reduced performance and increased maintenance costs.

Conventional cleaning methods were not only labor-intensive but also posed environmental concerns due to water consumption. We also understood the problems faced by clients from different fields, like Independent Power Producers, O&M companies, or the EPC contractors. We aimed to address these issues with cutting-edge technology and developed a quality dry robotic cleaning system that aims to reduce or remove manpower costs and also enhance generation by minimizing loss due to soiling.

Through extensive research, iterative design processes, and collaboration with industry experts, we successfully created a range of robotic systems tailored to the diverse needs of solar installations, catering to projects of varying sizes. By providing reliable, cost-effective, and eco-conscious solutions, we contribute to the expansion and success of solar energy projects nationwide.

Could you walk us through your flagship solar robotic cleaning product? What unique features and benefits does it offer in comparison to traditional cleaning methods?

Aplos Ventures has a diverse portfolio of products meant to cater to different structural orientations, geographies and site layouts. Our flagship robotic cleaning is “ease-i”, an acronym for the core values the product is designed around:

• Efficient – Increasing efficiency of solar plants by reducing loss in generation due to soiling.
• Adaptable – Adaptable for all weather conditions, module mounting structures (fixed-tilt or tracker) and geographies.
• Smart – Auto-scheduling, SOC based cleaning trigger and cleaning as per soiling level make the robot smart.  
• Easy – Provides ease of assembly, maintenance and operation.
• Intelligent – Driven through intelligent IoT based analytics and health monitoring, facilitated by an in-house cloud-based dashboard.

“ease-i” is offered in various models suitable for different module mounting structures like fixed tilt or tracker systems, different module orientations like 1P, 2P, 2L, 3L,4L, etc. There are 2 main variants of each model, the fully autonomous robot and the semi-autonomous robot (also called as pick and place or lift and place robot in the industry). Some of the unique features include a strong monocoque aluminum frame, a brush with ultra-soft UV stabilized bristles, an intelligent controller to drive multiple BLDC motors along with LFP battery meant to cater solar arrays to the maximum possible array length.

Apart from the above, we have developed a one-of-a-kind Mobile Docking Station (MDS) that aims to replace the existing semi-autonomous or pick-and-place robots by deploying a track-based movable docking trolley that can clean multiple short arrays in a straight line thus reducing the overall number of robots required, the capex for the same while also enabling daily cleaning of these arrays. Each such MDS has a robot that does the cleaning and the entire operation of both the MDS and the robot is in a fully autonomous manner, with the MDS having the ability to align vertically, horizontally and angularly with each array.

What technological advancements have you incorporated into your solar cleaning solutions to ensure they remain cutting-edge and effective?

At Aplos Ventures, we take pride in pushing the boundaries of technological innovation to ensure our solar cleaning solutions remain at the forefront of the industry, delivering cutting-edge and highly effective performance. Several key technological advancements have been integrated into our products like Real-time Monitoring and Remote Control, Data Analytics and Predictive Maintenance, Inductive Sensors, SOC and sunrise-based cleaning algorithms over IoT. Our line of products is made smarter and more intelligent using our cloud-based dashboard that enables multiple features like automatic cleaning scheduling, uptime tracking, the status of each robotic cleaning, health monitoring, inventory management, replacement schedules and alarm notifications among many other features.

You can find out more about our products by visiting our website.

India’s solar market is dynamic and competitive. How does Aplos Ventures differentiate itself from other players in terms of product quality, service, and customer satisfaction?

Our answer here is a pretty cliched yet simple statement:  by delivering a high-quality product at an affordable price and ensuring customer satisfaction by providing complete transparency to our customers, services with quick TAT with an aim to reduce the overall cost of cleaning to the lowest possible cost. At no extra cost, we also provide support to our client by giving feedback on optimizing array layouts to reduce the number of robot requirements and ensuring the layout is robot-compatible. Our other differentiator is that we also provide support in designing and fabrication of additional structures required for smooth robot movement like docking station, reversing stations and bridges. Our idea is not to sell more robots but to rather optimise the layouts to be cleaning robots compatible with a goal of reducing the overall cost of cleaning of solar power plants. To further help our clients, we have designed, tested and deployed a patented table-to-table bridge that stays engaged for the most extreme tracker-to-tracker angle differences. Our importance to technology and innovation can be gauged from the multiple patents that have been filed and granted so far.

As the founder, what core values and leadership principles have you instilled within Aplos Ventures to foster innovation, teamwork, and customer-centric solutions?

As someone with an experience of over 23 years in business incubation and having worked in a multitude of industries spanning metal and mining, textile, real estate, infrastructure and renewable energy with leading business groups in India, I felt a need to give what I have learned back to the renewable industry and to do so, hence, embarked on this journey of an entrepreneur and founded this venture. My colleagues in this venture are some of the best minds who all have prior experience in new product development, innovation and technology. We have all worked together as a team in our previous organisation and have carried forward the same core values that pushed us to new boundaries during our previous tenure, with quality, customer satisfaction and transparency being the pillars of our values. Our common goal is to leave a small mark on the environment by encouraging sustainable practices and building products that combine technology with renewable sources of energy.