Vibrant Energy
Solar Power Projects by Vibrant Energy – A OQLO.ai Innovation Story
Solar Power generation in India reached 35 GW in 2020. The tremendous growth in Solar Energy capacity in India has been led by the Renewable Energy industry, in which businesses such as Vibrant Energy have already made a significant contribution.
“OQLO.ai’s AI-powered technology is highly reliable and effective. Our business has seen OQLO.ai fix deeper issues in tracking the health of panels and solar arrays, surveying project land, and managing documentation.
I recommend OQLO.ai with confidence.”
– Srinivasan Vishwanathan, CEO and Founder
About Vibrant Energy
Vibrant Energy provides clean energy power solutions to commercial and industrial customers. They have developed more than 250 MW of new development assets across India already. They also own and operate 52 MW of solar assets. Vibrant Energy plans to grow at a tremendous pace to fulfill the capacity needed by the country for clean energy.
Vibrant Energy is on a mission to become a Gigawatt-scale developer and owner of renewable energy assets. They believe that excellence and innovation in their business processes is the only way for them to reach their goal faster. Vibrant Energy realizes the importance of technology adoption and technology-oriented process design and invests a lot of its focus to ensure that slack in their processes is minimized. Before collaborating with OQLO.ai, a major roadblock for Vibrant Energy was in the area of land surveying and construction progress tracking. In conversation with OQLO.ai, this roadblock clearly came out to be a significant pain point that restricted Vibrant Energy from getting projects completed faster. In fact, Vibrant Energy realized that there were several issues that gave rise to the overall delay in land surveying and construction management.
Business Challenge
The team at Vibrant Energy was working on four solar energy projects together. The locations were about 200 kilometers apart. This in itself was a big challenge because every time the project team needed to survey the site or track construction progress, they would have to travel a significant distance from the office. All such overheads were multiplied due to the scattered project sites.
The land surveys were carried out using conventional methods. These methods were time-tested and widely used, but could not support the advanced needs of modern energy projects. The accuracy requirements for solar energy projects were not getting fulfilled, such as identifying the boundary locations of the land.
Further, the solar panels required periodic monitoring to identify defects in one or more cells of those panels. There were audits scheduled at regular intervals, but this process was carried out manually. Closely inspecting each panel was deceptively difficult work that would require a lot of time and effort, with a risk of human error. Manually surveying the complete mesh of solar installations at one go was practically unfeasible. Such high investment projects demanded a better way of managing solar panels in which defects could be identified faster and more frequently.
Lack of digitized documentation and reports held back progress at times. Documents and reports are assets that are needed by several project stakeholders working from different locations. There are land documents, project progress reports, issue reports that Vibrant Energy wanted to make readily available with several teams and investors, and digitization was the only way forward. A similar issue in cross-team communication was observed. Conversations and important discussions over WhatsApp or phone calls lacked contextual reference to the exact issue onsite (location, scope et al). There was a risk of miscommunication that could not have been left out of the equation.
OQLO.ai carefully worked out a plan with the team at Vibrant Energy and delivered the solution.
Transformation Story
OQLO.ai’s drone-powered aerial inspections with AI-driven data analysis proved to be a great solution to the challenges faced by Vibrant Energy in the solar energy project.
OQLO.ai used drones to run several flybys over the project site. The drone flight path was carefully programmed and various configurations were carried out to prepare an accurate and high-quality Orthomosaic model of the site. During those flybys, the drones collect critical site information using multiple sensors and altitude calibration. There are RGB and thermal imageries of the site prepared based on these site capture activities. The AI-engine combines the RGB and thermal images carefully to create the ‘Digital Twin’ of the project.
A Digital Twin is an ‘Intelligent’ digital replica of the site, available as a 3D view on all devices. It has several powerful applications that OQLO.ai exploits with its proprietary AI-engine.
For example, the digital twin is very effective in identifying defects in Solar Panel installation. Each panel is outlined, mapped to thermal anomalies with the help of geo-location data. This process is carried out for all the panels. Based on the anomalies, defect reports are generated in various categories known as hotspots, submodule, module, partial string, and full string. It is much easier for the investigation team to review the defects and take necessary action. The efficiency with which OQLO.ai identifies such defects is in a true sense, unparalleled, specifically when one considers such high-stake investments. The thermal scans and the AI-driven analysis have increased the efficiency of the solar plant by 10%.
The land survey errors were completely eliminated due to the exceptional accuracy of the digital twin in creating the map of the site. Cut-and-fill analysis was easier than ever. Just a few clicks would generate the report for engineers to take action. Using the drone imagery to prepare contours and identify the exact area of site saved close to 20 days of design iterations for Vibrant Energy.
The digital twin brought about other major changes in the way Vibrant Energy executed the projects. The digital twin was integrated to the project design plans and schedule. OQLO.ai could prepare as-planned to as-build analysis reports, time-series comparison reports, project progress reports, and financial reports automatically. Documentation, reporting, and digitization of documents were simplified. The records were also available and shareable with all the important stakeholders. The digital twin was accessible from anywhere for the teams to monitor, survey, and take action. Inter-team and intra-team collaboration improved manifolds because the digital twin could be referenced for discussing the tasks contextually. Task identification and execution speed improved by 20% with the help of the Digital Twin.
Overall, Vibrant Energy used OQLO.ai to eliminate several issues in its business processes. Today, as Vibrant Energy push their own limits to reach the goal of becoming a Gigawatt-scale developer, OQLO.ai commits to their goal of continuous innovation, to rise to the demanding business needs of the renewable energy industry in India and across the world.
