PRECISION DRONE SERVICES

A beautiful farm, but the thermal is not so pretty…..

by Malcolm Davidge | Feb 17, 2021 | Uncategorized

This small 5MW solar PV farm is set in an idyllic part of the UK and it was a pleasure to go and inspect it. Unfortunately, not everything was quite so perfect under the surface and our inspection uncovered various anomalies, the most prevalent of which was issues...

From hotspots to cracked cells – a look beyond thermal imaging PV modules.

by Malcolm Davidge | Feb 9, 2021 | Uncategorized

During an annual UAV thermal inspection it was obvious that there were above average amounts of hotspots at this particular site. The small 5MW site had 225 hotspots of delta temperature less than 20degC, and 212 that were over 20degC. That is ‘genuine’...

Over 15% of the system offline.

by Malcolm Davidge | Nov 2, 2020 | Uncategorized

A Thermal inspection of this small 1.18MWp system revealed some of the usual culprits (blown/activated diodes, smashed front glass etc) as well as something that was a bit more out of the ordinary. Thermal image showing unusual anomalies in the PV system Very quickly...

Small Farm, Big problems

by Malcolm Davidge | Oct 31, 2020 | Uncategorized

1.85MW,  284 Anomalies, 3.84% of system 1Shattered Front Glass104Blown Bypass Diodes2Open Circuit Strings7Hotspots73Snail Trails49Soiling and Shading from foliageSummary of Anomalies This 1.85MW PV System is relatively small but contained a very...

A comparison of aerial thermal data processing.

by Malcolm Davidge | Oct 30, 2020 | Uncategorized

To conduct a thermal survey of solar pv by UAV/drone the data can be collected in a variety of formats (video/stitched images/individual image) and processed in different ways, all of which have pros and cons. We thought it would be interesting to compare thermal...