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Data Acquisition PV

Data Acquisition PV

Owned by fabian.wolfertstetter
Last updated: Feb 07, 2025 by Christoph Prahl
2 min read

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
RTK is mandatory for precise flight routes and high quality data. 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 for Mavic 3T
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 to start the drone at the designated starting point of your flight routes (first waypoint)
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
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

 

Further Reads:

VolaFly App: Download and installation

Volafly App: Flight mission execution

 

 

 

 

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