I always go back to GM and its first welding robots. They had to make changes to the construction and engineering process to optimize for those welders (and for them it was slow).
I assume that the current install process is fairly "human optimal". How much of that changes with your product to make it "automation" optimal? Were there small changes here for big wins? Or are you still using the same process with complex automation (the GM way), and do you see challenges arising from that?
This looks pretty awesome, but any reason you don’t use these in a central location to make foldable preassembled racks, instead of transporting the factory to the site?
Seems like you could fold them like an accordion into whatever max size can be carried by a forklift, drop them in place, pull them out to unfold, screw the whole prewired assembly down with ground screws, and plug it into the neighboring assembly?
This would probably work best with E/W racking, would go from tightly packed to corrugated.
I’m sure there are challenges I’m not considering, but with modules getting insanely cheap, it seems like racking/assembly/inverters are starting to dominate, and scaling up from single modules to full assemblies assembled in factories seems like a good next step.
(I’ve been building my own 20kw ground mount array, so I’ve had plenty of time to daydream about something we could’ve just dropped and pulled out)
> In some cases, solar construction companies were turning down projects because they couldn’t find workers. In other cases, workers were commuting for hours to get to sites with no hotels or grocery stores nearby.
So ... tired ... of ... this.
This is NOT a shortage. This is lack of salary. The oil industry somehow manages just fine to get workers to really out of the way places.
Apparently the companies aren't drowning in enough projects to pay more money.
Why is that?
Modules for solar farms have been getting larger and heavier, but the maximum size/weight has traditionally been limited by what human workers can heft into place. I'm interested in what the optimum size ends up being when those human limits are removed.
What's the most labor intensive part that remains when robots are putting the modules into place on racks? Attaching cables? I would guess that robots still aren't dexterous enough for that.
Every time I see news of a robotics company reportedly disrupting an industry, all I can see is the very large amount of prep work using conventional techniques (read: humans in excavators) to prepare the terrain for the (usually very strict) constraints of the robot being publicized.
If the new robot can install panels very quickly, but you need 3 weeks to flatten the field to unreasonable tolerances or install tons of dedicated framing and supports for it to function, your efficiency gains or cost saving numbers will take a hit.
Those considerations are unsexy and boring, they put a shade to the press release, yet are very important to assess the value of the innovation. I'll trust a company when they start being transparent about these aspects.
Related:
Launch HN: Charge Robotics (YC S21) - Robots that build solar farms - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30780455 - March 2022 (81 comments)
"It’s possible to install as much as 1 megawatt of solar power in a day, and a project could use multiple systems at once."
pretty cool.
i'm down with solar robots, but this is definitely one of those problems that's only a problem because of overly restrictive immigration laws. installing panels is pretty easy, there are tons of people who would be delighted to come to the US and install for $20/hr.
source : have a solar engineering firm in Kenya, and have never had problems with panel installation labor (QA is another story).
Great, this definitely needed.
On the domestic side we need go make rooftop solar more efficient to install for countries like the UK, there aren't enough people to do it there either.
This is really cool!
Broadly, I think there's so much potential for computing in construction. If we can model logistics decisions as optimization decisions, we can leverage incredibly efficient solvers to extract efficiencies. The challenge, of course, being the "info pipeline" - integrating machines with construction processes and planning software and orchestrating it all in a way that adds value.
If an entire construction plan is modeled, you could also compile it into a staged procurement/shipment plan, and essentially orchestrate the supply chain in sync with the jobsite activities.
It'd be cool to have more info on how the process looks like with/without these machines, how rates of specific activities are impacted etc. but a bunch of this stuff is probably proprietary.
For comparison, here's a nice video (in Brazilian Portuguese, but should be understandable even if you don't know the language) showing a solar farm being built in the traditional way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W1nQT7az8c
Would it ever make sense to pour foundations of some kind rather than put in poles? I'm thinking maybe a trench making machine could be used and concrete poured into the trench, and then the solar panels could be secured by putting a wide base into the concrete instead of a pole?
My good buddy, Union carpenter, laughs at Silicon Valley hipsters trying to replace his industry with robots.
One of his greatest quotes is ‘We already have 3d printers for buildings, they’re called cranes’.
His advice every time I send him one these articles usually rounds to: ‘If these smart@$$ %|~>heads would spend a couple of weeks on the job actually sweating and doing some real labor, they’d realize the problem isn’t lifting things, it’s organizing it.’
What's the turn on capital for a buyer? Like, how many panels does a construction company need to install to pay for your system, and how does that line up to project size?
This seems like a great construction robotics application since you have such an empty / controllable site. Did you ever consider teleoperations as well?
Seems like it assembles individual panels into bigger blocks... But why do that on site? Surely you can do that much much easier in a factory somewhere?
In the last photo in the article, why are the panels at such a steep angle and pointing away from the sun?
What's the name of the solar company that just lays down solar panels flat on the ground? Ersolar? That's the future of solar Farms. panels are just cheap enough to cover the ground flatly without complicated buildings.
This thing mounts panels and screws them in. So? That is maybe 1% of the needed labor, and could be more easily optimized through better connectors (snap-on or drop-in panels). Show me the robot that can survey and install foundation posts, wire up the panels, or clear brush and open the pallets of equipment during initial setup. The robot revolution is coming, but this isn't it.
Why did you disable the comments on your YouTube teaser?
Do this on the moon and you're going to have a multi billion dollar company.
If we want to grow US economy by making existing humans more productive per capita, then we need cheaper energy per capita, cheaper intelligent robots per capita. Also goes to say we need less NIMBY-ism per capita.
We need high speed rail building robots, solar farm building robots, home building robots, healthcare robots. Cheap repairable open robots. Robots that defend us, robots that transport.
More robots than humans. More robot companies diverse in their approaches.