The world has embarked on the creation of immense solar farms. China is making colossal efforts in this area and has a solar farm twice the size of Manhattan. The United States doesn’t want to be left behind, and states like California have taken solar power generation very seriously (so much so that they don’t know what to do with the surplus). The same goes for Texas, which has always been an oil giant and is now getting into solar energy.
Global forecasts show we will install thousands more panels in the short term and there is one problem: lack of labor. The solution? A robot whose task is very simple: install solar panels.
Maximo. This is the name of this creation of AES Corporation, a company that has promoted the development of renewable energies for several decades. It is a very specific robot, since its only task is to charge and install photovoltaic panels on the rails built for this purpose in the solar parks.
It can work tirelessly alongside the operators who supervise it to accelerate solar energy delivery times to customers, and is capable of operating in varied climate and lighting conditions.
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L‘AI, of course. Maximo’s brain is an artificial intelligence system which, with the installed sensors, allows great autonomy. According to AES, the functions driven by the AI thanks to its Nvidia brain are as follows:
- Artificial vision: ensures precise positioning of the panels.
- Continuous learning: adapts to achieve optimal performance and operate more efficiently.
- Image Reconstruction: Features a generative AI system that allows sensors to “read” the terrain, even in the most difficult lighting conditions. This relates to both low light conditions and the glare that can occur due to light reflecting off the panels.
The founder of the Maximo project at AES, Deise Yumi Asami, said that “one of the biggest problems we had to deal with was glare.” This is a phenomenon they observed when they moved the robot from New York to Ohio, because the light hits at a different angle and they had to train the system to avoid this type of glare.
It already works. In its tests, Maximo has already installed almost 10 MW of solar power and the idea is to install 100 MW by 2025. This doesn’t sound like a robot, but the goal is for the robot to contribute to the installation of 5 GW over the next three years. We are already talking about bigger numbers and, after some time of development and testing, it will start working next August as part of the Bellefield project.
It is a 2 GW field located in Kern County, California, and one of the largest solar projects in the United States. This field has a contract with Amazon and Maximo has already been tested in another Amazon project: Oak Ridge Solar in Louisiana.
In this video you can see it in action:
Essential, according to AES. AES is proud to say that “Maximo is the first tested solar installation robot on the market” and has come to solve the labor problem amid the growing demand for the installation of these systems . Currently, according to American estimates, 15,000 solar modules per hour, weighing 225,000 tons, are installed. The objective for 2035 is to install 50,000 per hour. In other words, the addition of energy will triple and the labor force will have to double.
But there’s a problem: 90% of solar energy companies admitted that it’s difficult to find qualified labor. This is where robots like Maximo are positioning themselves as the future of this sector. And if you’re wondering why there will be so many new solar farms, you have to keep in mind that it’s not just end users who are consuming, but also data centers and servers, especially with the boom of AI, which need a lot of electricity. Google and Microsoft, for example, already consume more electricity than 100 different countries.
Another disadvantage is public opinion and labor. Currently, it takes 12 to 18 months to build a large solar farm, but AES wants Maximo to help reduce that time significantly. Other robots work on the trusses, such as the RPD 35 from Built Robotics, which is responsible for driving the piles on which the panel rails will be placed. This task usually requires six or seven employees, but with the RPD 35 and two workers, the company says it is completed three times faster.
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Coming back to Maximo, we will see to what extent it speeds up construction, but knowing that it can work 24 hours a day without interruption and lift 40 kilo panels without problem, the question is whether this automation will destroy jobs. Writing in the New York Times, Katie Harris, vice president of an association of labor unions and environmental groups, says: “Every time we talk about automation, there’s a tug-of-war. It can help people to be more productive, but we also want to create well-paying union jobs Automation is not always an ally in this regard.