Meet the WALL-E of solar panel cleaning robots  

We’ve all had someone approach us at the traffic lights wanting to wash out windscreen. It only costs loose change, but it turns out paying someone to wash a whole solar farm worth of panels in the middle of a desert is far more costly. Until now this was a problem in search of a solution – enter robots.

For most of us, keeping solar panels clean is a breeze. A little rain does most of the work for us, an occasional hosing doesn’t hurt. While the undeveloped conditions found in a desert are perfect for solar panel placement without disrupting residential housing development, it presents other maintenance issues.

In Israel, Arava Power use 84 cleaning robots that utilise solar power and don’t require water to keep their 18,200 panels clean. Wind and dust storms can wreak havoc with the efficiency of solar panels in arid environments, a gentle brushing with rollers covered with squeegees can improve efficiency by up to 40%.

Ecoppia’s E4 units feaverishly clean every inch of every solar panel, and don’t even make a fuss if their work is spoiled by an untimely dust storm.

E4 robots are programmed to clean the panels every day with the massive task taking only an hour. Their batteries supply enough juice for three days worth of cleaning allowing for prolonged periods of cloud cover.

Supplier Ecoppia not only provides the machinery but the mechanism for overseeing the cleaning. “You can be in San Francisco and you can easily control your solar parks in Ghana, Namibia, India and Saudi Arabia,” Ecoppia chief executive Eran Meller said.

Robot manufacturer BrightSource supply solar panel cleaning robots to California’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, with other robot manufacturers like Greenbotics starting up the field will continue to mature.

Establishing a self-maintaining gives solar planst an edge of coal, gas and nuclear plants that all require significant human oversight that can not be automated.