EDF Fenice reduces maintenance costs by 74% with drone technology in photovoltaic installations.

Aiming to install 200 MW by 2025, this technology enables monitoring of production plants equipped with solar systems EDF Fenice, a specialist in Energy Efficiency and Photovoltaic Self-Consumption solutions for the industrial and tertiary sectors, announces a strategic plan to modernize the safety and inspection of photovoltaic installations using drones. The initiative aims to reduce direct scheduled maintenance costs by 74% for customers. The company plans to review 450,000 photovoltaic modules and 900,000 m2 of rooftop surface area. To this end, it has launched a comprehensive training, advisory, and equipment program for its clients. With this, modern drone technology has been integrated into the monitoring and maintenance service offering that the company provides in our country, which stands out among the most advanced in the industry. This innovative alternative allows the company’s technicians to perform advanced monitoring of their clients’ energy installations and reduce potential operational incidents by improving safety inspections and remote diagnostics, consequently increasing the profitability and lifespan of the installation. This is especially relevant at a time when strong growth in renewable energy consumption is expected, driven by the European Union’s Green Deal, which will mean Spain going from its current photovoltaic capacity of 5.4 GW to 30 GW before 2023. “This is an innovation that not only brings significant benefits to customers but also impacts a key aspect of the current market: savings in energy consumption and the choice of renewable, less polluting sources to drive industry. At EDF Fenice, we are committed to this dual environmental challenge, and our efforts are focused on offering the cleanest and most profitable alternatives to help all of society move towards planetary sustainability,” emphasizes Martha Senra, Digital Director of EDF Fenice. This is confirmed by the two main pillars of this initiative: safety and efficiency. On one hand, drones facilitate visual inspection and monitoring of photovoltaic installations during the offer and engineering phase, where inaccessible areas or those with a high risk of falling from heights are identified. On the other hand, EDF Fenice’s advanced management solutions improve installation efficiency by reducing technician inspection and review time, thanks to the thermographic, photographic, and videographic technologies incorporated into the drones. The person responsible for this project at EDF Fenice insists on the importance of conducting thorough annual reviews to ensure the proper functioning of the installations and adds that “energy efficiency is highly relevant both for clients’ bottom lines and for the environmental impact of their activity, an aspect that has already become one of the main driving forces of the market worldwide.” Innovation in this field is therefore decisive for correcting incidents, restoring installations to their initial state, quickly checking for any defects in a module that reduce its performance, monitoring its operating temperature, and carrying out permanent tracking of the installation. “Drones are here to stay, and this model (U-Space) is already a reality. That is why we are integrating their use into our projects as another tool within our energy and maintenance culture, focused on maximum productivity and minimum risk in terms of safety,” concludes Martha Senra, Digital Director of EDF Fenice. To achieve this, the company has its own facility with different types of industrial installations, where it can test tools and the new installation management environment in a personalized way. These monthly practices include inspection drills or asset studies, which also allow them to accumulate flight hours with the new drones. As next steps, the company is experimenting with and diversifying the potential applications and uses of these solutions. Specifically, they are examining the possibility of performing photogrammetry of the installation in order to incorporate an official orthomosaic map of the installation in three dimensions for the medium-term future.