Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar

Autonomous Drones in
the Age of Solar
A Guide on Building the Business Case
for Drone-in-a-Box Deployment

raptormaps.com © 2023 1
 Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar

Table of Contents
Executive Summary 3

What is “Drone-in-a-Box”? 4

Autonomous Drone Solar Use Cases 5

Autonomous Drone
10
Implementation Requirements
Technical and Regulatory Considerations

ROI for Deploying Autonomous Drones 11

Calculating Value

Conclusion 14

raptormaps.com © 2023 2
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar

Executive Summary
As the solar industry continues growing
rapidly, asset owners and operators are

> 7x
struggling with significant construction
delays and accelerating equipment-
driven underperformance, reducing the
system uptime and profitability of their
projects. In 2022, the EIA found that nearly
Expected Annual ROI
20% of planned PV sites were delayed, and
in 2023 YTD, Raptor Maps has observed On Base Use Cases
an average 5.6% equipment driven
for Drone-in-a-Box
underperformance rate on PV systems
analyzed.

These trends can be tackled through more frequent granular data to track, understand,
and address on-site factors influencing timelines and production. However, additional
data can be labor intensive and expensive to collect. Given the constrained labor
market and slim project margins, teams are forced to prioritize the highest value
tasks for in-field technicians, limiting the time and funds spent capturing data for
sophisticated site monitoring which can prevent rework and support early intervention
to ensure peak performance.

In this context, solar stakeholders need a means to monitor site conditions without
implementing additional truck rolls, contracting third party labor, or distracting
attention from existing on-site activities. This creates the impetus to leverage
autonomous tools with significantly lower labor requirements, such as autonomous
drone (“drone-in-a-box”) solutions. Drone-in-a-box scopes for base use cases have
an expected >7X annualized return on investment, as detailed below.

raptormaps.com © 2023 3
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : What is “Drone-in-a-Box”?

What is “Drone-in-a-Box”?
Drone-in-a-Box (DIAB) is the latest evolution of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) technology. It is a self-contained, weatherproof, deployable drone solution
that can execute charging and data export on an automatic basis without manual
intervention. The drone can be deployed on a scheduled or ad-hoc basis and can
rely on conditional flight formatting, which allows users to leverage a data input to
recommend and/or launch a mission with particular specifications.

Drone-in-a-box technology creates the opportunity to eliminate the on-site labor

requirement associated with data capture and significantly reduce the marginal cost
of incremental flights. For owners and operators who leverage third party contractors
or send pilots to site for data capture, this also creates an opportunity to reduce travel
and the environmental impacts associated. Customers often allocate drone-in-a-box
solutions as a capital expenditure, which can also create an opportunity to leverage
tax incentives in financing the scope.

Image: Skydio Dock (“Drone-in-a-Box”)

Image Credit: Skydio

raptormaps.com © 2023 4
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar

Example Solar Use Cases

Construction Routine Aerial
Monitoring Thermography

Tracker Reactive
Alignment Monitoring

Equipment Vegetation
Inspections Management

Security and Civil and

Site Access Fence Checks

* There are many more use cases for drone-

in-a-box technology on solar sites

raptormaps.com © 2023 5
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Autonomouse Drone Use Cases

Autonomous Drone Use Cases

What functionalities can autonomous drones support in order to drive
value on solar sites?
With essentially zero marginal cost for flights, solar stakeholders can deploy drone-in-
a-box (DIAB) solutions across a variety of value-driving use cases on their farms. This
section will cover several commonly scoped use cases.

Construction Monitoring
Drone-in-a-box solutions can be utilized to create topographic maps to track civil
progress, as well as orthomosaics to confirm arrival of shipments and equipment,
track location of personnel and machinery, verify installation progress, and respond
to rapidly changing conditions.

DIAB-based construction monitoring allows for more transparency and verification

of contractor reports of site progress, creating more accountability to timelines.
Leveraging tools to compare progress relative to design diagrams also ensures that
any misalignment is proactively identified and does not require costly rework.

Certain types of equipment damage are common in the construction on PV sites;

construction monitoring with adequate frequency creates an auditable system of
record, allowing owners to avoid risk and financial burden associated with this
damage. Historical imagery can be used to deconstruct issues and support warranty
or delay payments.

raptormaps.com © 2023 6
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Autonomouse Drone Use Cases

Routine Aerial Thermography

Traditionally, aerial IR inspections are performed annually or bi-annually due to OPEX
budget constraints. The reduced marginal cost of flights with DIAB technology unlocks
the ability to increase inspection frequency. This will support proactive identification of
on-site issues, allowing owners and operators to conduct preventative maintenance to
avoid escalation (e.g., module outages which lead to full strings offline). More frequent
flights help identify performance impacts closer to when they develop, minimizing
the overall system downtime and preventing build up of quantity and severity of
remediation work required.

Standardizing flights to have the same flight path, camera angle, height, starting
location, etc. creates a resolution of historical data where you can track performance
over time, identify trends throughout your portfolio, evaluate contractor performance
and procurement trends as well as do more accurate modeling of project returns and
required intervention points.

Image: DJI Dock (“Drone-in-a-Box”)

Image Credit: DJI

raptormaps.com © 2023 7
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Autonomouse Drone Use Cases

Tracker Alignment
Utility-scale tracker systems are equipped with remote system monitoring and an
array of TCUs (Tracker Controller Units) that allow control centers and plant managers
to identify misalignment and offline tracker tables.

As with any system, this can be flawed, and device connectivity can make it difficult
to discern if the equipment is offline vs not communicating. A weekly high-altitude
overview flight with a DIAB will allow for monitoring redundancy and verification of
tracker functionality. It can also identify more granular misalignments (15-30 degrees)
which can impact system performance but are often significantly harder to detect.

Reactive Inspections & Ad-Hoc Site Monitoring

Aside from scheduling more frequent proactive thermal inspections, drone-in-a-box
solutions can be programmed to recommend and/or launch missions in response
to third party data triggers. This enables automatic response missions based on
prompts like weather events or alerts from a DAS / SCADA system.

From a remote control center, owners and operators can assess site conditions,
determine the scope of maintenance needed, and ensure technicians are equipped
with the necessary information to support remediation without additional truck rolls.
Overall deployment and response time is minimal, and in the case of alert-driven
missions, technicians can avoid spending time responding to low fidelity alerts and
doing in-field testing to assess the root cause.

Visual Equipment Inspections and Site Walks

Often, crews spend a significant portion of time on site conducting site walks to
visually inspect the status of equipment. These efforts can be replaced with an
autonomous drone that captures thermal and visual imagery of non-module
equipment (e.g., cables and wiring). The drone can also be programmed to fly at a low
altitude to detect more granular issues like thin-film glass cracking at a high resolution
before it propagates.

After identifying damage that can be claimed through a warranty or insurance

process, the autonomous drones may be able to support serial number capture which
is often a necessary data point to support claims.

raptormaps.com © 2023 8
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Autonomouse Drone Use Cases

Monitor Vegetation, Civil, and Fences

Vegetation maintenance on utility-scale solar facilities is a significant part of the
annual project budget and in some cases can be more than half. Timing your
vegetation activities (spraying and mowing) is a key component to getting the most
out of your spending. Leveraging autonomous drones for vegetation analysis allow
you to time these more appropriately. Monitoring overgrown vegetation will also
prevent module shading and ensure better system performance.

Roads, fences, and inverter pads are part of routine operator maintenance. Most of
these inspections do not lead to improved system performance and can take time
away from other activities that can. With autonomous drones, you are able to inspect
roads and inverter pads for erosion and examine fences for damage from the control
center. This frees up valuable time for your site team to make high-priority repairs.

Security and Site Access

Site security on facilities as large as thousands of acres can create technology,
manpower, and cost constraints. In many cases, this means large sections of the array
will have no security oversight and rely on perimeter inspections. With an autonomous
drone system, operators will be able to schedule regular perimeter inspections as
well as respond in real time to security concerns.

Another benefit will be monitoring gate access and having visual confirmation that
the permitted visitors are the only ones accessing the site. On NERC (North American
Electrical Reliability Corporation) facilities, this access logging is a requirement of CIP
(Critical Infrastructure Protection), and the DIAB images can act as redundancy to sign-
in sheets.

raptormaps.com © 2023 9
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Implementation Requirements

Autonomous Drone
Implementation Requirements
What are the requirements for operationalizing autonomous drones for
solar use cases?
Enabling Software
Drone-in-a-box hardware solutions are a blank slate and require software to be
effectively deployed for solar use cases. Selecting a software provider that provides the
digital infrastructure to power robotics is essential in capturing the maximum value of
the solutions. The core elements of enabling hardware are:

• Digital twin technology that can be used to model and plan flights, store varied data
sources and ensure findings are geo-located and actionable

• A flight library that includes specifications for different use cases and enables users
to schedule flights or approve missions that are triggered by data integrations

• A sophisticated data processing methodology to ensure high quality insights on the

captured imagery. Without a system for data processing and quality enforcement,
teams will have to flip through the wealth of images captured to understand the
findings and execute necessary downstream actions or analysis. In order to have
an efficient and accurate methodology, AI-powered models need to be trained on
a wealth of solar data, which will only be present among providers with specific
industry-specific experience and focus

• Structured workflows for conducting site and portfolio analysis and modeling based
on the findings and driving in-field action to address findings and maximize site
performance

raptormaps.com © 2023 10
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Implementation Requirements

Regulatory Approval
Across most geographies, current regulations require drone operators to maintain a
visual line of site on the aircraft they are operating. Drone-in-a-box hardware poses
an exciting opportunity to standardize flights for more sophisticated data analysis and
to rely on different triggers for new mission types. However, owners and operators will
need to receive regulatory approval to garner the additional value associated with
forgoing the on-site labor requirement.

Raptor Maps works with our hardware partners to provide a turnkey offering for
hardware, software, and regulatory support on drone-in-a-box scopes. We are
happy to provide an initial assessment for any sites in your portfolio on which you are
interested in implementing drone-in-a-box solutions. Some of the key factors that will
be considered in the regulatory process are:

• Relevant regulations you are looking to waive - This will be dependent on the
geography of your operations, as well as which elements of the operation you are
interested in automating

• Your concept of operations - This is a detailed description of your proposed use.

It will include the area of operation (location and boundary of the operations),
intended flight paths, corresponding altitude and time of day, hardware utilized

• Risk mitigation plan - This will outline how you plan to address the air and ground
risk factors to ensure the safety of your operation

The Raptor Maps team can help you define these components in order to support
the waiver process. The regulatory environment across a variety of geographies is
becoming increasingly receptive to unmanned aircraft operations beyond visual line of
site when the appropriate precautions are taken.

raptormaps.com © 2023 11
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Calculating ROI

Calculating Drone-in-a-Box ROI

How do I estimate the overall value of deploying autonomous drones on
my solar site?
The return on investment for drone-in-a-box scopes will depend on a variety of
factors including:

• Site size and financial value of power produced (PPA)

• Use cases being executed

• Current and intended approach to site monitoring and labor (e.g., do you have a full
time on-site team, or do you send folks out to support specific remediation efforts?
What types of findings do you take action on, and at what frequency? Would that
change with more frequent insights?)

• Budgetary allocation (i.e., capitalization and associated tax credits)

The costs for executing a drone-in-a-box scope will include:

• Hardware purchase or lease, and required installation and maintenance services

• Software enablement package including library of analytics, data processing scope,

and downstream workflows to ensure actionability

• Regulatory support, where needed

The following scenario will cover the ROI of deploying drone-in-a-box on a 200 MWdc
site for the routine thermal inspections and tracker misalignment identification use
cases.

raptormaps.com © 2023 12
 Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Calculating ROI

As an example, on a 200 MW site we can expect the site to see a 7X+ return on
investment annually when utilizing a drone-in-a-box to execute more frequent
thermal inspections and tracker misalignment identification missions, with the value
levers illustrated below. This analysis relies on data from the Raptor Maps 100+GW
dataset which illustrates an average 5%+ equipment based underperformance on sites
that conduct, on average, 1.1 inspections per year.

This 200 MW site would see over $700K in increased production, and would also
benefit from reduction in labor required for site walks and forgone traditional data
collection costs. When additional use cases are implemented to enhance site security,
drive warranty and insurance claims, or otherwise maximize system uptime, the ROI for
drone-in-a-box projects can increase even further.

Annualized Financial Benefits on 200MWdc Farm

(vs. Annual Manual Inspections)
Financial value of earlier identification
and remediation of the following issues:

Combiner Modules Sub-module Stuck & Labor Data Total Annual

box & string defects misaligned savings collection benefits cost of DIAB
anomalies anomalies trackers savings value deployment

Assumptions: The incidence of equipment-based underperformance mirrors that which is observed

in Raptor Maps’ global 100+ GW dataset and anomalies arise with an equal distribution throughout
the year. The operator will address 30% of the sub-module level defects detected, 90% of the defects
detected at the module level and above (excluding inverter level outages, which are often detected
through performance monitoring systems and are unlikely to be further reduced through drone-in-a-
box solutions). The site PPA is $0.10/kwh. The time between becoming aware of underperformance and
addressing it remains constant across scenarios (conservative assumption given build up of issues
often yields longer remediation timelines due to backlog of issues).

raptormaps.com © 2023 13
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar : Conclusion

Conclusion
The solar industry is facing a variety of challenges as it scales, not the least of which
are delayed and underperforming sites which produce less revenue than modeled
and intended. The constrained labor market makes monitoring and addressing the
underlying factors of delays and underperformance challenging and expensive.
Autonomous drone technology creates the opportunity to build increasingly efficient
operations, empower teams to focus on the highest value activities, and maximize
solar project returns. When implemented for basic use cases, drone-in-a-box
solutions can have a 7X+ annualized return on investment on solar sites. When
implemented for additional use cases, inclusive of additional activities requiring high
labor investment not listed in this document, the ROI can increase further.

If you are interested in the potential within your portfolio, contact the Raptor Maps team
to discuss the highest value use cases for your needs and to receive a comprehensive
site assessment.

For more information

About Raptor Maps

Raptor Maps is building the integrated operating system for end-to-end solar
management, enabling the industry to scale and meet global climate goals.

With intelligence for the entire solar industry, our solar management platform
(Raptor Solar) provides the tools and the system of record that asset owners,
managers, O&M, developers, and EPCs need to build, manage, and operate
their solar sites. It improves asset resilience and energy yield, reduces risk
and costs, and ultimately increases the rate of return of solar assets. Raptor
Solar also provides the operating platform necessary for deploying robotics.

Questions or interested in deploying robotics on your sites?

Reach out to mark@raptormaps.com

raptormaps.com © 2023 14
Autonomous Drones in the Age of Solar

© 2023 Raptor Maps

raptormaps.com | mark@raptormaps.com

raptormaps.com © 2023 15