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There are many reasons solar powered robots are touted as alternatives to human-operated machinery. Solar robots can go into hazardous areas with minimal risk to human life. They can deal with bomb threats, chemical spills, and even surveillance in a dangerous region.
However solar robots have limitations affecting global adoption of the technology. Despite improvements in perovskite material, the majority of solar energy technology uses silicon photovoltaics and stubbornly remains at a maximum 25% efficiency. Until manufacturers can improve that efficiency, solar robots will not be widely adopted by industry and/or government.
Silicon is the leading material used for constructing solar panels and cells. Whilst there is no shortage of the silicon dioxide used to create the silicon photovoltaic cells ' head down to the beach and grab some sand - it takes an enormous amount of heat to eliminate the oxygen attached to it. Manufacturers have to use an electrode arc furnace to heat silicon dioxide to the required temperatures of between - degrees Celsius. Viable perhaps, but the unfortunate side effect is a higher emission of greenhouse gases.
Perovskites have been widely touted as an alternative material to manufacture solar cells. With no silicon dioxide required, perovskites represent a clean method of solar cell production and can be made at a lower cost with fewer emissions. Perovskites are made using materials where organic molecules (primarily carbon and hydrogen) bind with a metal (such as lead) and halogen (such as chlorine) to form a 3-D crystal lattice. As perovskites can be mixed into liquid solutions, they can be deposited as thin films on the surface of almost any shape ' making them perfect for use on robots. However, perovskite solar energy conversion efficiency is still only just above 20% - a full 5% lower than silicon photovoltaics can produce. There is also the question of perovskite durability. Concerns remain over how they can weather different environments or how to industrialize manufacturing to produce perovskites in the same quantities as silicon. Whilst perovskites represent a positive step in the right direction, their lower energy conversion efficiency means they are less likely to be widely adopted.
One overriding factor that always exposes the limits of solar powered robots lies in the environment itself. Climatic conditions always mean the energy conversion and storage remains at the mercy of solar exposure. For a robot to have a useful operating time, a battery is required to store solar energy when little may be available. Battery costs are high and most are big and bulky. Small-scale solar powered robots like drones and ground-based vehicles work incredibly well when there is plenty of sunlight but operating time drops significantly when little sunlight is available. Battery storage does work, but for robots to run for longer the battery needs to be bigger making a small scale robot unviable. To prove the limitation, one only needs to index the various amazon pages online where solar powered robots are targeted towards hobbyists rather than business or government.
Another limitation to solar powered robots can be found in the market dominance of silicon photovoltaics (PV). As it is the most widely adopted solar power, any new technologies being developed are complementing rather than replacing PV, making solar powered robots harder to scale down in size. As silicon PV works best on a large scale (eg. flat panels), building a solar powered robot with this method means the robot can only work in short bursts. Until the market for PV alternatives is there, this limitation will remain, and there are developments in the pipeline. The use of supercapacitors as an alternative storage method for robotics and small scale electronics could work. Connecting a capacitor to a solar engine has shown that the capacitor maintains the voltage at a nearly constant level. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for applications that need more energy whilst retaining a light weight.
Solar powered robots do work, and the possibilities for what they could help us with in the future remain exciting. However, until global markets adopt alternatives to silicon photovoltaics, solar robots will likely remain as curiosities and experiments used mostly by enthusiasts and hobbyists.
There's hardly an industry that artificial intelligence hasn't touched by this point -- and residential solar is no exception.
That's good news for solar customers: AI promises to make solar installations faster and potentially cheaper, while also improving the performance of a home energy system over time.
In the not-so-distant future, AI could help you design your solar system, analyze your property, optimize a home battery (if you have one) and even predict maintenance costs after the panels are installed.
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"The [solar] system's justified without the AI, and the AI is just going to keep on increasing the consumer's value," said Frank Magnotti, CEO at Electriq Power, an energy storage company.
Here's what you need to know about the potential benefits, and risks, of AI's increasing role in residential solar.
AI has gotten a lot of buzz lately, but the term refers to a broad range of technologies, according to Magnotti. He says there are two main types of AI that are important for solar. One is the Chat-GPT-style bot that many of us are now familiar with, and the other is the engineering-type AI that can do complex optimization for a home energy system.
The chat-style AI can already play a role in the front end of the solar process, assisting or even replacing the traditional salesperson, Magnotti said. And the engineering side of AI acts as the crucial "smarts" embedded in a system.
That engineering piece is already prominent in the home energy and solar industry. Anyone with a home battery already has software that is optimizing performance, which is itself a type of AI. Some customers may want to "set it and forget it," but for those who want more of a hand in deciding how their home energy system works, AI can already do that.
In the long-term, AI has a lot of room to grow in the solar industry.
Magnotti sees a future in which AI plays a part in nearly every step of the process, from customer acquisition to installation and maintenance.
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AI chatbots can help handle customers in what is currently an extremely labor-intensive piece of the solar process. The technology could also improve the design of solar systems that are tailored to what a customer wants -- say, maximum net-metering income, or lowest installation cost.
Magnotti says the software in home energy systems will also improve, and develop the ability to use ever-more-specific data, like local weather predictions, to optimize performance. "AI [can include] all the predictive weather forecasts -- is your grid going to go down -- but very localized to you, as opposed to generic information," he said.
In a word: Yes.
One of the most labor- and cost-intensive pieces of residential solar is customer acquisition, Magnotti said. Companies sometimes spend thousands of dollars to acquire and close each customer, and that cost is baked into the price of solar.
If AI chatbots take care of much of those initial customer interactions, it could drastically reduce labor costs for installers. AI's help in the design process can also reduce costs by gathering more information about a customer's specific roof, reducing design errors and speeding up the entire thing.
Taken together, Magnotti said, AI can take a chunk out of some of the major expenses involved in solar installations, meaning the potential for lower costs for customers too.
We've touched on some already, but here's a detailed breakdown of where AI could help the solar industry.
This is an area where AI chatbots can really excel. Magnotti said AI might become a customer's first point of contact with a solar company, allowing them to ask questions and get important information before ever talking to a real person. "You can really optimize the sales efficiency," he said.
Once a homeowner has entered the planning process, AI could churn out real-time design options for customers. Depending on what you're optimizing for (low cost, maximum energy production, resilience or something else entirely), AI could model it for you.
"Here's where AI can play a bigger role, because there's a lot of predictive scenario planning," Magnotti said.
Usually a solar installation involves a home visit from the solar company and could be slowed down by how busy they are. Magnotti said AI could step in here too by running a remote drone flyover of your home and gathering information about the installation site without relying on existing satellite imagery or sending humans to your home to inspect conditions.
Once a customer has installed solar, the AI software embedded in the system (especially if it's paired with a home battery) can pull a lot of weight. Again, software could optimize for whatever a customer wants: solar production, energy storage, net-metering income or resilience during a power outage. "This also is AI with all the predictive and learning algorithms," Magnotti said.
Maintenance on solar is easy to forget about. "This long-term maintenance matters a lot, and generally end consumers don't put that in their calculations," Magnotti said. The details are less defined here, but Magnotti said AI could help customers not only predict when their system will need maintenance but potentially reduce the costs as well.
Magnotti sees little risk in AI's growing role in solar. In fact, he says whatever risk there might be in letting an AI make decisions will only decrease as time goes on.
"The bigger the scale, the lower the risk," he said, because AI "learns" over time as it consumes more information. "The more data that you have, the better your AI is going to be'This is just going to get better and better, it's not going to get worse with scaling."
It's true that AI is going to improve -- and potentially lower the cost of -- solar installations, but that doesn't mean you should wait to buy.
"There's no need to wait, and it's only going to get better, and your economics are going to keep getting better," Magnotti said.
Plus, existing customers are likely to benefit from continued improvements in AI software. If you have a home battery paired with your solar system, for example, your battery's computer could get automatic software updates every time the AI improves, without any costs or new installations on your end. In other words: The hardware won't change very much with AI, and you can always get a software update.
"The economics are there for solar right now," Magnotti said. "You don't have to wait."
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