As the UK moves to renewable energy in a bid to reach net-zero, the number of solar panels fitted to commercial roofs is dramatically increasing.
Due to this increase, routine inspections of roof mounted solar panels is now becoming a more important requirement for businesses that are switching from relying on the national grid to solar panel and battery storage systems.
To ensure the long term performance of solar panels is achieved, periodic visual inspections using drone surveys equipped with thermal cameras should be utilised to ensure that businesses are getting the most from their investment.
Issues with solar panels can at best, reduce their power generating output and at worst, become a serious fire risk. Visual inspection using traditional methods can be tricky, requiring scaffolding or ‘at height’ inspection teams to conduct solar panel inspections. So it is understandable that for many residential and commercial properties that have solar panels fitted, if they can’t see any problems, then they will believe there are none. One of the reasons that drone inspections are so beneficial is that with one simple fly over, a drone can survey your properties solar panels using thermal imagery to detect problems that the human eye can’t see. Because solar panels are covered with such long term warranty plans, many of the faults captured by our solar panels can be repaired or replaced at no extra cost to the property owner.
Drone inspections of roof mounted solar panels can detect faulty cells within the solar panel, PID faults, string errors and even defective diodes.
How Balmore can help
At Balmore, we can fly one of our commercial drones over your property, conduct visual and thermographic inspection of your solar panels and provide you with a detailed report using our award winning cloud based software. Finding a problem and having it fixed under warranty can save you both in future repair costs and the loss of power output (whether you are using it or selling it back to the national grid).
We provide award winning drone survey and inspection services. Our team of fully qualified drone pilots can provide visual indoor, outdoor and underwater drone surveys with HD video, thermal imaging and photography media. The significant cost and time savings of drone surveys means that they are a genuine alternative to conventional inspection methods and are fast becoming the number 1 method of conducting regular visual inspections on key assets , utilities and infrastructure.
To meet the growing demand for drone surveys, we are constantly expanding our fleet of aerial drones to meet our customers needs and offer the very best in drone services across Scotland and the North of England.
