Photovoltaic Cleaning – Does Your Solution Have What It Takes?

As countries across the globe are constantly faced with challenges associated with water scarcity and because this is a trend that will only increase in the coming years due to global warming, photovoltaic solar generation is one of the utility’s focus areas. Today, Iberdrola has a global portfolio of photovoltaic projects to install more than 14,000 MW of large-scale projects, including the Nuñez de Balboa plant with 500 MWp and the Francisco Pizarro plant with 590 MWp of installed capacity respectively.

Iberdrola is committed to clean and renewable energy to move towards a sustainable, safe, and competitive energy model. Part of this commitment is the constant search to improve efficiency and/or reduce operation and maintenance (O&M) costs to increase the competitiveness of renewable energy. Therefore, Iberdrola is looking for solutions that help to improve the operation & maintenance in large PV power plants (>100 MW). Among the maintenance activities, and due to water scarcity on most sites, the company is looking for “waterless” solutions to clean photovoltaics in a sustainable and efficient way.

What’s In It For The Winning Proposal?

While Iberdrola aims to increase power performance and reduce O&M, winning the Photovoltaic Cleaning Challenge can be a great way for participants to scale up their solution. As a reward, Iberdolra offers:

• To collaborate and test the winning proposal
• The possibility to scale-up and/or get investment from Iberdrola’s VC arm Perseo
• To cover the costs of the testing activities
• To provide technical support to test the proposed solution
• To provide a real environment and data to test the solution

What Is Iberdrola Looking For?

The Challenge is open to a variety of entities such as startups, private companies, panel manufacturers looking to extend their products or services, and research institutions. Proposals for solutions can include, but are not limited to the following solutions/main features:

• Fixed or portable solutions that can be utilized for several PV plants which are close by
• Remotely and/or fully autonomous operated solutions
• Solutions to prevent stick stains
• Solutions to dissolve stick stains
• Solutions which are energy-independent from the plant
• Solutions that cause no damage to the PV panels’ characteristics
• Solutions that are compatible with fixed-tilt or single-axis tracker installations (PV plant configuration)

Sounds like your solution’s got what it takes? Apply for Iberdrola’s Photovoltaic Cleaning Challenge by 18 October 2019!

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