Ecoppia to deploy 2,000 robots at Bhadla Solar Park in Rajasthan – interview

Israel-based Ecoppia has partnered with SB Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp., to deploy 2,000 robots across its five sites in the Bhadla Phase III and IV Solar Park Project in Rajasthan, India. This announcement follows its recent completion of large-scale deployments with ENGIE and Ostro Power (Actis Group) in the Bhadla park. pv magazine speaks to Ecoppia CEO Eran Meller about the project.

July 3, 2018 Uma Gupta

The water-free Ecoppia solution claims to save over 2 billion of liters of water during the 25 years of the solar plant operations.

Image: Ecoppia

SB Energy’s PV panels will be cleaned daily by Ecoppia robots without any human interference and will be remotely managed through a cloud-based control system. The water-free Ecoppia solution claims to save over 2 billion of liters of water during the 25 years of the solar plant operations.

“In general, the evolvement of large-scale and ultra-large-scale solar sites make manual cleaning simply not sustainable while relying on the vanishing water resources for the next 25 years for cleaning,” said Ecoppia CEO, Eran Meller while speaking to pv magazine about the use of robots vis-a-vis low-cost human labour in India.

“Robotic cleaners, on the other hand, allow optimal energy production all the year round, regardless of the local constant high soiling level and frequent dust storms. In addition, using these robots saves millions of litres of water, which is a scarce resource in the state of Rajasthan and would clearly be more useful for drinking, sanitation, agriculture, etc.,” he added.

Commenting on Ecoppia’s presence in India, Meller said, “Overall, we have closed 3 GW in India. In Rajasthan alone, we have over 1 GW in or under deployment. Last year, all of the tenders in India that resulted in record low tariffs had Ecoppia’s solution integrated into the offering.”

He added, “The demand is huge. Businesses strive for full automation, and in parallel the very challenging tariffs and low margins in the market require new technologies to support the operation and management of sites.”

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