Afterfit introduces fully automatic drones for inspection and monitoring of solar power plants -Drone journal
Green Power Company Afterfit has launched a power plant in Tochigi Prefecture, which manages its own automatic drone inspection and monitoring operations by fully automatic drone. The power plant monitors and inspects remotely in uninhabited state.
In March 2022, a fixed -price purchase system (FIT) of solar power generation has been completed, and cost reduction is required. By introducing a fully automatic drone, it will be saved in maintenance operations, and will be used for theft measures in power plants that have occurred in recent years. The company also states that solutions and introduction proposals to power plants other than in -house management will be promoted.
Practical use of fully automatic drones will be implemented at a power plant (1,924 kW) in Ashino, Nasu -cho, Tochigi Prefecture. There is no pilot or assistant in the site, and all operations of drone inspections are performed remotely from the Tokyo headquarters (level 3: no assistant visual flight). DRONENEST (charging port) and drone are installed at the power plant, and when the flight start button is pressed on the computer screen of the Tokyo headquarters, the drone flies along the predetermined inspection route. Shoot the solar panel with an infrared camera and automatically return to DRONENEST. One inspection time is about 20 minutes and the charging time is 60 minutes. It is also possible to work with a crime prevention monitoring system to turn the drone to the place where the abnormal detection is detected and warn the intruder. After completing the demonstration experiment at our own management power plant, we will enter the operation phase, and propose to be introduced to power plants other than in -house management.
It is said that the company's importance for practical use is the collaboration between the fully automatic flight inspection program using general -purpose aircraft and the company's system. The dedicated drone for the maintenance and inspection of the power plant was expensive, although there were development cases. By utilizing DJI general -purpose products, the cost of equipment and programs was less than half. In addition, it has a system for creating an image management and an abnormal report of the power plant in -house, and it is possible to link the obtained images via the cloud. In December 2021, a demonstration experiment was conducted in Sapporo City on the inspection work of solar power plants using a general -purpose drone general -purpose machine. And this time, we will start operation at level 3 without assistants on the site.
The background of the introduction of a fully automatic drone includes reduction of maintenance costs, saving labor, and measures to prevent theft. The company has already incorporated drones in the inspection work of power plants, and it takes 3 hours per MW for human resources inspection operations, but it is 10 minutes for drones. By utilizing a fully automatic drone for maintenance and management of power plants that require further savings due to aging and shortage of human resources, the flight time of the drone is the same, but the inspection engineer for maintenance management for maintenance management. It will lead to cost reduction and saving. In addition, drones are used for security and monitoring for copper wire theft in the power plant. Theft such as copper wire has a disadvantage that the amount of power generation drops during the time it takes to repair and replace it, in addition to the direct cost for the replacement. There are cases where the stolen occurs several times a year at the same power plant, and the measures are urgent. Furthermore, with the introduction of a fully automatic drone, in addition to regular inspections of power plants about four times a year, it can be easier to check the damage caused by typhoons and heavy rains, and to examine the problems and causes. I am.
