In the subpages you will find all information relevant to the data acquisition process in the field Below is a checklist of what you need to keep in mind when it comes to data acquisition
✏ Before flight day
- Make sure that all info requested in Checklist solar plant data PV has been sent to Volateq
- Volateq team informed you that the flight routes are ready for your site
- make sure your RTK service is active and connecting on your drone. For more info see: RTK and NTRIP setup
- We recommend using the VolaFly Drone App. Instructions on how to install it on your drone controller can be found here: VolaFly App: Download and installation
- Check if you have a fast enough SD card. Recommended SD cards: SanDisk Extreme 128GB V30 microSDXC or SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB V30 microSDXC
✏ Conditions and preparations before drone flight
- weather:
- Wind speed below 5 m/s
- Less than 10% of sky are covered by clouds. If a cloud casts shadow on parts of the solar field during the drone flight, the flight has to be repeated some 10-15 minutes after the cloud has left
- The weather is clear and sunny, no clouds, with irradiance (plane of array POA) > 650 W/m2
- solar field:
- The solar field has to be in full operation, make sure there is no clipping in any part of the solar field at the time of flight.
Defects can only be detected by thermography for operational modules. All other modules will be shown as “open circuit” - Solar field is clean. Solar field cleanliness > 0.97 (less than 3% soiling losses)
- Only for tracking PV field:
- make sure to complete your flights within no more than 2 hours before or after solar noon.
- all modules must be at the same tracking angle. modules with tracking angles diverting from the nominal value cannot be evaluated
- No shadowing of adjacent rows during flights - especially in winter!
Drone:
- Make sure the drone settings are put correctly depending on which app you use for flight execution:
- Description on how to launch your drone in the VolaFly Drone App: Volafly App: Flight mission execution
- In case you fly with litchi, please configure these settings in DJI Pilot 2 PV: DJI Mavic 3T and M30T : Drone configuration and flight execution with DJI Pilot 2 or PV: DJI M2E Advanced: Drone configuration with DJI pilot app for
and then launch the drone like this: Litchi App: Settings and flight mission execution - Avoid touching any controller wheel or button during the flight, you might change the video settings. As a result, this flight cannot be evaluated
- Only start the flight with a full drone battery
- if solar plant conditions change during flight execution by more than 10% (cloud passage, tracking motor malfunction, …): pause image acquisition (go to home) and resume after 10-15 mins in constant conditions
After flight
- Upload data to the analysis for your plant in Volateq’s WebApp; go to analysis, select current analysis and upload data: https://app.volateq.de/analyses