DroneBase, a US-based intelligent aerial imaging services provider, today announced that it has acquired India-based aerial solar inspection and data analytics specialist AirProbe. The acquisition expands DroneBase’s footprint throughout the Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe while bringing to it the advantage of AirProbe’s proprietary Artificial Intelligence solution for aerial solar inspections and proprietary data analytics.
The AirProbe solution reduces the time needed to analyze aerial inspection data of solar energy systems by up to 50%. This enables solar owners, operators, and financiers to more quickly take action to fix high-value anomalies and defects to increase energy generation and improve system ROI.
AirProbe has inspected about 22+GWp assets globally, including rooftops and ultra MWp solar parks. It has a cumulative 5 GW of solar assets in India. This includes about 80% of solar assets in Bhadla (Rajasthan), 75% of assets in Pavagada (Karnataka), and 70% of Anantapuram (Andhra Pradesh).
“As both the number and size of solar energy systems deployed grow exponentially, inspecting and maintaining millions of systems will become more critical and more complex,” said Dan Burton, CEO of DroneBase. “DroneBase solved how to scale solar energy inspections and data capture and AirProbe solved how to scale solar data analysis with AI: together our solution is truly unbeatable.”
“India and the APAC region are growing markets for the renewable energy industry. With AirProbe, we have added the most-forward thinking aerial analytics developer and disciplined operator throughout APAC and EMEA.”
With the use of the technology, the asset owners are able to reduce their dependence on certain activities which were earlier being performed manually. For instance, using AI and drone inspections for construction monitoring, the owner is now able to visualize the project site and monitor the progress remotely with a high degree of accuracy. This delivers better insights, enabling improved efficiency, productivity, and informed decision-making based on practical conditions.
“Our mission at AirProbe has been to increase the adoption, reliability, and efficiency of solar energy systems by developing the best AI-enabled software solution. That aligns perfectly with DroneBase’s mission to continually deliver the best, actionable intelligence so that solar energy system operators and financiers can deliver more clean energy and grow their bottom line at the same time,” said Aditya Bhat, founder of AirProbe.
Bhat will be based in Bangalore, India, and oversee operations in the APAC market.
The terms of the acquisition deal were not disclosed. With the acquisition, DroneBase adds another 22 GW of solar energy systems under inspection, bringing the DroneBase total to more than 59 GW of both wind and solar energy assets under inspection. By the end of 2022, DroneBase expects to reach a processing capacity of 140 GW solar and wind energy annually.
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