QBotix Solar Robots: Intelligent Mobility

14 January 2013

Like sunflowers lifting their petaled heads into the sun, the QBotix solar robots intelligently track and adjust solar panels to do the same – towards the moving sun to produce more electricity

The top five solar farms are outside of the US – Spain and Germany lead the way.  But earlier this year, Green Talk reported that the world’s largest community solar farm was moving forward in the UK with 1650 investors on board. In October 2012, Australiabuilt and switched on  its first utility solar farm. The time is here.

The sharp reduction in the price of solar systems has resulted in a dramatic expansion of the market as well as the need for new ways of improving financial returns of solar projects.

Enter Wasiq Bokhari, QBotix founder. He spent three years prior to starting the company in 2010 developing ground mounted solar projects. From there the idea came: solar panels and inverters were probably going to be a commodity business, and a new way of thinking was needed in the mounting and tracking space in  photovoltaics. Bokhari assembled a team and over the next 15 months the first concept  – QBotix Tracking System, was created led by QBotix Vice President of Engineering, Lalo Ruiz. By September 2012, the first robots were revealed to the public.

QBotix robots provide a healthy value proposition  – increase system electricity production and revenues by 30-40% with only a 10% increase in cost.

“Economical, accurate tracking has been an elusive goal for the solar industry for years,” said Bokhari. “By adjusting solar panels toward the sun as it moves during the day, you can produce more electricity.

QBotix Robot

Dual-axis trackers—which can move panels in 360 degrees of direction—provide the best results. A solar panel on a dual access tracker will produce up to 45 percent more power than the same panel in a fixed position. It will provide 10 to 15 percent more than one that moves on a single East-West axis.

So, a solar power plant equipped with a QBotix robot will generate power at a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) that is 8 to 15 percent lower than a power plant with single-axis tracker and 15 to 20 percent lower than a power plan with panels in fixed positions.

The solar panels are the same, but the power costs less.

“In energy, cost is everything, so we are effectively giving solar developers a way to compete with coal and natural gas,” adds Bokhari. “A lot of the efficiencies have already been wrung out of panel production and the electronics that get sold with solar systems.  Balance of systems represents a new frontier for lowering the price of solar.”

One single QBotix robot can manage 300 kilowatts worth of panels, reducing components, maintenance and cost but it also gives the solar farms another benefit, reduces the cost of construction. They are  replacing steel, concrete and a multiplicity of mechanical parts with intelligent mobility – Wasiq Bokhari, QBotix founder

Bokhari says that one of the big insights the team had was quite simple: the sun’s relative position in the sky moves relatively slowly and panels really only have to be moved every 40 minutes to get the maximum benefit of tracking. So a few robots go a long way and in the end, changes how solar farms operate.

Unlike other robotic start-ups, they have been one of the very few companies to attract institutional funding in the solar space. The company has raised $12.5M to date and the round was led by institutional investors including the NEA, NEA, Firelake Capital, DFJ-JAIC and Siemens Venture Capital. They also received a $1M award from the Department of Energy Sunshot program.

But the robotics community is still evolving in Silicon Valley and is still much smaller than the East Coast.

“In the robotics community there’s still a lot of debate over whether the future of robots belongs with humanoid machines that can replace humans or robots that perform the “dirty, dangerous and dull” jobs like exploring Mars,” adds Bokhari. “Or, in our case, adjusting the relative position of thousands of solar panels to precise angles over a 12 hour workday in the middle of the desert.

Bokhari believes there’s probably a market for both, but dirty, dangerous and dull shows more promise because you’re applying technology to tasks that humans don’t want to do or can’t do.

“It makes robots an extension of our capabilities,” adds Bokhari.

But bringing it back to the new age-old question what is a robot, Bokhari believes a robot is an intelligent, autonomous machine capable of doing a range of specialized tasks.

QBotix Robot on the job

Bokhari says theQBotix robots are a different category of robotic systems compared to the ones used in residential, industrial or military applications. Residential robots, like iRobot‘s Roomba, are low price but designed to work in controlled indoor environments. Industrial robots, like the ones that do automobile manufacturing, are higher in price, but still operate in a controlled indoors environment and have flexibility in the range of operations they can do. Military robots are rugged and versatile in their operations, but have much higher price tag.

“QBotix systems are different because they are in the middle range of price but designed to operate for years in harsh outdoor environments with minimal maintenance,” adds Bokhari. “Other robotic systems are not typically designed for such long term autonomous outdoor operations.”

QBotix systems were first deployed in a commercial setting almost 15 months ago with two commercially operating sites currently using the system.