Coimbatore startup make Autonomous Solar Panel Cleaning Bots
Coimbatore-based Solavio labs, a solar panel related start-up incubated at AIC Raise incubator, has been selected for acceleration in the 2020 winter cohort by a Canadian accelerator, Energia Ventures.
Solavio™ is a start-up that designs, develops, and manufactures Modular Autonomous Solar Panel Cleaning Bots, Semi-Auto Bots, and Motorised Handheld Brushes for cleaning Solar PV panels.
The retrofit nature of the product makes it compatible with almost any solar panel, mounting structure, type (roof-top or ground mount) or climatic condition and is almost 30% lighter than most bots in the market.
They provide a dry-cleaning technology that is non-abrasive and UV resistant ensuring at least 99.6% cleaning efficiency (99.5%) without affecting the glass surface. The dry-cleaning technology saves over 200,000-litre of water per Mega Watt per year.
In India, WHO has reported that by negating the use of the water, the lives of over 8000 individuals can be uplifted per MW of water saved per year.
Due to its light-weight design, Solavio is disrupting the industry by introducing the SHAREABLE robot concept (1 bot for multiple rows) reducing the cost of switching to robotic cleaning by more than 60% as opposed to the competition offering a bot per row ensuring an ROI in under 2.5 years.
The cohort program started on 14 September and will culminate on 9 December in a demo day in which all participants will pitch their businesses and display their products.
Apart from mentoring, programming, and business support, all cohort participants will receive funding from the New Brunswick Innovation Fund (a Canada-based Venture Capital) to help scale their start-ups.
The main challenge with solar panels is cleaning. Dust and other impurities deposit on the surface of the solar photovoltaic (PV) panels reducing the efficiency by up to 40% and affect the corresponding ROI for Solar Plant owners.
Therefore, solar panels need to be cleaned from time to time to minimize efficiency losses. As a result, there is a dire need for an economical and effective autonomous dry-cleaning solution for solar PV panels. And that’s where Solavio comes in efficiently.
Solavio targets the renewable energy sector with a specific focus on Solar Photovoltaic Power Systems. The relevant audience for their product offering includes:
a. Solar plant developers/owners
b. Solar Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) Contractors
c. Solar Operations & Maintenance (O&M) companies
Solavio Labs office is currently located in India, Coimbatore Tamil Nadu, with a subsidiary regional office in Dubai.
“The onboarding of Solavio into the Energia Ventures Accelerator program will see them expand their operations to the North Americas. This also means that Solavio is now the 1st PV-focused Clean Tech Start-up to be incubated under support programs in 3 countries (India, UAE and Canada),” Suraj Mohan, CEO of Solavio Labs said on 2 Dec 2020.
Additionally, they are in advance discussions with reliable partners to start operations in South East Asia and Australia.
Solavio seeks to leverage Robotics, AI, Image processing, machine learning, and deep learning to continue building innovative products that go beyond the cleaning of Solar panels such as drone-based cleaning of High rise building surfaces, UV Sanitization drones and bots, Agricultural bots, Security bots, etc.
Solavio’s products will be offered under 2 models; Capex and Opex to offer flexibility to the end-user for deploying cleaning bots.
Solavio Labs also won 1st place in the Resilient Smart Infrastructure Category of the Prestigious EDF Pulse India 2020 Start-up Award.
AIC Raise supported by Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog is India’s first Startup Incubation Centre focusing on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals established by Rathinam Group of Institutions.
AIC Raise is creating a holistic ecosystem for social start-ups for maximizing profits and benefits to society and the environment. #renewables #technologies #solar #investment #exports /fiinews.com
