Robots bolster solar quality

The rising use of automation and robotics in solar manufacturing, project development, and operations and maintenance is helping guarantee top quality and lowest cost, several equipment providers suggest. “In the race for the lowest priced solar product, there is only so much you can do to drive out fractions of a cent per watt, but robots can do that,” says Yan Banducci, Adept Technology’s Senior Product Line Manager, based in Pleasanton, California.
Others confirm an uptake in automation adoption. “We certainly have seen an increase in the use of automation in solar, involving all sorts of machinery from small six-axis robots for sealing panel edges to large robots for inspecting and palletizing assembled panels,” says Scott Melton, Director of Sales for Fanuc America West Robotics, based in Lake Forest, California. Automation industry officials suggest that solar is adding use for a variety of reasons. “The cost of robotics and automation has gone down along with the cost of computers, so it is now cheaper, more flexible, and easier to program,” says Bob Doyle, the Director of Communications for the Association for Advancing Automation, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “And with the new notion of collaborative robots becoming smaller and working closer to humans, industries like solar are now seeing a lot of growth. This year is a huge year, up 15% to 20% over last year,” he says.
The Robotic Industries Association, also based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, estimates that there are some 230,000 robots in use in the United States, which ranks second only to Japan in country robot use. However, China became the largest consumer of automation and robots over the past year, outstripping markets in Japan, Germany and the United States, suggests Adept Technology’s Banducci. Other Asian consumers of automation are not far behind. To support this growth, ABB opened its Regional Robotics Packaging Application Hub in Singapore in July last year.

Honing a competitive edge

The wider use of automation in solar seems inevitable as the industry matures. “The use of automation and robotics to be more competitive is a growing trend in solar manufacturing. The automotive industry has been leading user groups but a lot of other industries are catching up. The solar industry has found that it can produce panels faster, cheaper, and with higher quality without a lot of manual operations, and this will continue whether the products are made in the United States or in a foreign country,” says Fanuc’s Melton. “We are selling a lot of automation equipment into China right now. But we also have seen a lot of manufacturers bring their production lines back to the United States from abroad by adding automation, lean manufacturing and six sigma [tools for process improvement],” he says.
Tom Baric, the engineering manager of industrial products for Parker Hannifin, based in Irwin, Pennsylvania, confirms this trend: “Solar has to be highly automated to be competitive. We are seeing that as labor rates rise in China, companies are pulling back to the United States. We provide motion components ranging from the sub-micron scale to a millimeter or two, and from handling ounces to several hundred pounds,” he adds.
Another robot maker helping the solar industry manufacture more efficiently is Adept Technology, which offers small, medium and large machines. “Most of our robots are used in cell handling for which we have a new four-axis robot, the Cobra S800, which is extremely fast and precise,” says Banducci. “Our robots have integrated vision systems and they can pick up a cell off a stack, hold it on a camera to take a picture, put it over a flash tester, then stack the cells according to their particular quality,” he says. “The S800 can move a cell several feet in 0.4 seconds, and one user measured the robot’s cycle time to pick up a cell, hold it over a camera and do a flash test at less than 2.25 seconds,” he said. “We also have other robots that can pick up and position a string of cells, and an even larger robot to handle a full panel,” he notes.
Speed is pointless without precision, however, which separates humans from machines. “While it is true that our machines offer cost savings over labor, in the solar industry particularly, the reality is that the greatest benefit is the quality of the work,” says Banducci. “With robotics there is less breakage and the end result is very consistent: There’s no subjectivity and there are no mistakes – the fewer times people touch cells the better a product you will have,” he says.
Apart from a centralized manufacturing site, solar product makers also can use transportable modular automated lines to create production close to an installation site. “There can be a significant cost for shipping solar products to more distant locations, so you can manufacture more cost effectively even in a high cost region if you can cut the logistics costs,” notes Banducci. “Apart from providing product just in time you can also meet content requirements more readily, in places like Brazil,” he says.

Integrators customize solar lines

Automation and robotics manufacturers sell some products directly to end users, but largely rely on turnkey integrators to assemble the right mix for the customer. “Right now most of our sales are though our integrator network; they do turnkey systems, in which their expertise is to combine components like conveyors, our (robotic) products and other process equipment, then implement software to manage the entire system,” says Melton. “One of our new products that is being used for solar is our LR 200ID series for small assembly including wafers, for sealing, and other functions, at a much higher speed and faster throughput than our previous models,” he notes.
The global turnkey provider of automation and robotics teamtechnik, of Freiburg, Germany, recently released a new stringing line, the TT1600, which with 1,600 cycles per hour and with 45 MWp performance can connect a solar cell in less than 2.25 seconds, the company touts. Teamtechnik relies on a variety of partners for components within its turnkey systems. German companies generally are further ahead in solar automation than U.S. companies, several sources suggested.
Similarly, U.S. integrator Spire Solar utilizes off-the-shelf components for its turnkey solutions, for instance with its most recent delivery to Algeria, notes
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Steve Hogan, the General Manager of the Bedford, Massachusetts-based company. Delivering between 20 MW and 50 MW worth of systems per year, Spire also sells single-function equipment like their simulator and electrical systems test unit. “There are very few manufacturers worldwide who don’t use some part of our equipment in their line,” he says.

Robots in the field

Apart from use of robotics in manufacturing, a variety of companies are developing systems to install solar farms, operate trackers and provide washing and other maintenance functions.
Panel washing is perhaps the area where the most robotics are now being used in post-production solar. One manufacturer, Ecoppia, has already installed 350 of its water-free units, each of which carries its own solar panel for power and a battery that will run it for three days, says Anat Cohen Segev, the Director of Marketing for the Herzeliya, Israel-based company. The latest E4 version of the Ecoppia robot attaches to a top and bottom rail along a series of solar panels, and moves itself along its row, using a soft microfiber and controlled air to clean panels on a daily basis. The power loss from sand and dust in desert areas, where this robot system is targeted, can be as high as one third of normal output, so return on investment can be readily predicted between 18 months and four years, the company says. Ecoppia, which has two patents and three others in process, was founded in 2013 and is privately held by multiple investors.
Another more rigorous use of robots for field operations has been developed by QBotix. Its robots travel on a monorail between double-axis trackers, which it readjusts to keep panels within five degrees of optimal tilt.
“We are moving into the commercialization phase now, with 4 MW done and an 80 MW pipeline,” comments Mike Miskovsky, the new CEO of the company, based in San Carlos, California. The system is particularly useful at a site where topography may be a challenge, like a hillside. QBotix has raised $23.5 million in funding since it was founded in 2010. Backers include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Enterprise Associates, Siemens Venture Capital and Firelake Capital Management.
One multifunctional robotic system that builds PV farms is that of Alion Energy, of Richmond, California, which lays extruded concrete racking with its Rover robot, then adheres panels to the racks with gripper arms. Once the installation is complete, a companion robot, Spot, rolls along the racking to clean the panel surfaces. “We can build utility scale solar plants twice as fast as conventional installation with half the labor,” says CEO Mark Kingsley.
Advantages of the Alion system include its ability to lay rail over dips in the ground by pre-filling holes with concrete, and the elimination of most metallic framing: The panel is held up by just two small fold-down legs that are epoxied in place. Not requiring ground perforation, the system is ideal for municipal landfill or hazardous commercial disposal site applications. Spot can be managed by a smart phone and can be outfitted to use gardening shears if vegetation growth needs trimming. Others have also attempted to integrate robotics into solar construction. A few years ago, an official at Kiener Maschinenbau, based in Lauchheim, Germany, estimated that it would take only four workers and two of the company’s $900,000 robots to install solar panels for a 100 MW project. Their robots were designed primarily to unload and place modules at a solar installation site.
Additional creative ways to use robots in the field have only begun to emerge, some say. “One idea is the concept of a mobile station, at a solar farm under construction, that could do some assembly like adhering panels to racking on site,” notes Fanuc’s Melton.