Energy Extraction and Storage

The rules are changing when competing in the energy extraction and storage solutions industry. We intend to help you seize the early-mover advantages in terms of innovation and investment across the energy storage value chain. While policies are enacted worldwide to take urgent action against climate change, the solar energy industry remains resilient and ready for further growth. Global commodity market research indicates a 999 GWh new energy storage capacity worldwide between 2021 and 2030.

The Distributed Energy Storage Solution (DESS) industry has witnessed advances in its products and production methodology. The rapid technological advancements, coupled with reduced energy resource costs, increased remote working setups, and more companies looking towards alternative energy sources on limited resources, have pushed the capacity installations to remain at an all-time high.

Manufacturing of solar photovoltaic cells benefits from robot automation

Drivers to Automation Success in the Solar Extraction and Storage Industries

Industry success is driven by which company has the most extensive customer base, diversified global market, and the most stable track record. This motivates investments in Research and Development that focus on agile and resilient responses to shifting market requirements. Leading photovoltaic manufacturing units and Tier 1 module manufacturers strive toward scalability and boast a 23-45 percent solar cell efficiency by using IoT, artificial intelligence, and mobile robots during the manufacturing process. The adoption of automation helps to support strategic production and capacity transitions to more efficient solar cell systems (such as the growing monocrystalline silicon solar cells vs. polycrystalline silicon solar cells). The benefits of automating the solar industry are more expansive than other industries because the applications extend to military-grade UAVs, remote environments, deep-space missions, smaller buses, RV appliances, and even traffic lights.

How is Automation Influencing Solar Technologies?

Quality of solar cell manufacturing is improved by automated inspection and testing

Photovoltaic Cells — Automating Testing to Installation

As industries develop novel processes to assemble thin-film solar cells into larger solar arrays, they aim to:

Increase manufacturing efficiency with a savings of approximately $300-400 per watt
Initiate research for future in-space solar array manufacturing for space missions
Standardize manufacturing processes to reduce assembly errors and improve product quality
Eliminate skilled labor needs in manufacturing to enable non-industrial assembly
Extend automation in maintaining photovoltaic cells as well with robotic arms installation, drone inspections, and water-free or self-powered solar panel cleaning robots

In addition to increasing manufacturing efficiency, leveraging robotic automation and no-touch technology to build fully-functional flexible thin-film solar arrays helps to reduce labor costs, time-to-market, and meets the growing residential, corporate, and satellite demands. The benefits of automation extend to Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) as well.

Automating the Concentrating Solar Power Value Chain

Manufacturing facilities must focus on a smarter CSP that provides a distributed intelligence and autonomy through miniaturized sensors and processors embedded in CSP components. Moreover, robotic field-maintenance systems for CSPs utilize the same principle for their automated installation. Ultrasonic rangefinders, GPS, and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors automate operation and obtain cost efficiency for the entire CSP life cycle. Modern methods autonomously clean on a predetermined schedule, reducing downtime with minimal required human intervention.

To reduce the need for expensive collaboration between the installation units and robotic arms, companies strive to automate the delivery system as well (within 2 cm of accuracy). They utilize an advanced understanding of Moore’s Law, AI, computer vision, and computational laws. These tools, along with many others, help leading CSP manufacturing units to strategize on how to make solar energy more affordable.

Solar Heating and Cooling Systems (SHC) Automation Benefits Industries

Similar to Concentrating Solar Power, Solar Heating and Cooling Systems are widely being adopted in commercial and industrial applications as well. The harnessed thermal energy from the sun provides hot water, cooling and pool heating, and space heating, displacing the need to use electricity or natural gas. This can help to reduce dependency on imported fuel.

Automation in solar heating and cooling systems provides benefits by predicting weather forecasts through Digital Twin applications. The units provide component scalability and historical demand data and carve out a future for more compact solutions that benefit automotive and other mobile solutions that require SHCs.

Harness and Scale Success with Us

Vision, strategic partnerships, and technology can all partner together to make you a leader in an increasingly cost-intensive industry. It is important to make informed decisions, reduce your cost and downtime with streamlined workflows, and integrate your automation each step of the way. Whether manufacturing silicon ingot, silicon wafers, solar cells, and solar modules, solutions such as real-time wafer dispatching, automated material handling systems, and complete production wafers automation, B2E Automation can help you achieve a leaner work-in-progress control and a focused capacity expansion platform for the future.

Not all solutions are created equal. B2E Automation can help you find the most effective tools that fit your specific process, long-term goals, and budget.