14 DAY TRIAL // This might sound like a piece of news somebody would write and publish to mark April Fools' Day, but, as strange as this may sound, this is not the case. On the contrary, Israel is indeed home to a solar plant that is a bit of a germaphobe, and which makes sure that it is always spick-and-span by cleaning itself.
OK, the part about how this solar plant is a germaphobe is not exactly true to facts, but there is nothing fictitious about the news that it does not need workers to clean it, simply because it takes care of this issue itself. Clean Techies informs that this peculiar facility is dubbed the Ketura Sun solar park, and that it is located in the Negev desert in southeastern Israel. It covers 20 acres, and it has a yearly clean energy output of about 9 million kilowatt-hours.
The same source details that, when compared to other regions, deserts make perfect homes for solar plants. This is because there is plenty of unobstructed sunlight available, and also because the geography of the land allows for the installation of plenty of photovoltaic panels without too big of a headache.
The downside to such green-oriented projects is that dust is also a common presence in the desert. This might not be such a problem if it were not for the fact that dust very much enjoys setting up camp on top of solar panels, thus diminishing their efficiency in terms of harvesting sunlight and using it to generate electricity.
The folks in charge of managing the Ketura Sun solar park explain that, were the panels that make up this plant left unattended and uncleaned for several days in a row, their efficiency could drop by as much as 35%. This means that the facility would generate less clean power.
Then again, having workers clean the solar panels would take about five days. Besides, such operations would be quite risky, both to the cleaners and to the sensitive equipment that is part and parcel of the Ketura Sun solar park.
To solve this problem, the plant has been provided with several Ecoppia E4 robots whose sole job is to patrol the park's premises during nighttime and clean the panels. Information shared with the public says that these robots can remove 99% of the dust that builds up on solar panels.
Interestingly enough, they do so by using not water, but a rotating microfiber brush and an airflow cleaning system. To make sure that the presence of these high-tech workers does not harm the facility's pretty much nonexistent ecological footprint, the robots themselves are powered by their own solar panels.
Check out the video below to see one such Ecoppia E4 robot at work, and let me know what you think about this innovative way to keep solar panels clean in the comments section.
