Flying the 6,000 acre Gemini site once a week, Zeitview uses manned aircraft and drones to observe the construction of the 690 MW solar plus 1.5 GWh storage facility and deliver the captured imagery and data that cannot be collected from the ground.
Zeitview, an aerial intelligence company formerly known as Dronebase, will actively inspect, monitor and analyze the construction of Primergy Solar’s Gemini solar-plus-storage plant to streamline construction, reduce corrections, and evaluate challenges in real-time and improve project oversight. The Gemini project, a 690 MWac solar plus 1.5 GWh MW battery energy storage project located on federal land managed by the BLM in Clark County, Nevada, is being regarded as the largest utility solar project to date to be paired with an energy storage system.
“Gemini is an opportunity to lead the replacement of traditional coal-fueled power plants and pave the way for a more sustainable future, said Adam Larner, chief operating officer of Primergy Solar. “With over 1.8 million bifacial solar modules, the size, scale and integration of a 1.5GWh DC coupled battery, NV Energy has enabled one of the most complex clean energy power plants ever.”
“Aerial monitoring is critical in supporting the construction and operation of any solar asset, and with something at the scale of Gemini, it is even more crucial to maximizing the development and long-term investment in renewable energy power plants,” Larner said.
Zeitview’s aerial monitoring and Solar Insights software support developers, asset owners and industry stakeholders to keep track of project construction, from equipment and staging locations to installation.
Flying the site once a week, Zeitview uses manned aircraft and drones to observe the construction of Gemini and deliver the captured imagery and data that cannot be collected from the ground. As its customer, Primergy can make informed, actionable decisions to ensure efficient development of the behemoth solar site.
Zeitview’s construction monitoring platform incorporates artificial intelligence to analyze data from photographic imagery of the project site and associated components.
“Aerial data intelligence is crucial for the efficient site management of solar plants like Gemini,” said Mark Culpepper, general manager of global solar solutions at Zeitview. “Beyond minimizing rework to delivering projects within time and budget constraints, a weekly bird’s eye view of construction provides the intelligence you can’t see from the ground. It makes inspectors more productive and frankly more accurate, compared to manual inspections, and saves the time and carbon emissions required to drive a site.”
Gemini will support over 1,000 jobs in the community during construction and add up to $463 million in economic development value to Nevada’s economy. Once the solar and storage of the Gemini power plant are interconnected to the local utility grid, it is projected to provide a consistent, dispatchable clean energy resource for peak energy demand in Nevada.
On February 7, Dronebase announced its rebranding as Zeitview, which means “time view.” The company says it better captures the nature of the company’s services and mission to accelerate the energy transition. In addition to providing real-time data, the company offers long-term solutions to track changes across a period of time for an asset.
The company is funding its business model pivot from drones and aircraft to an inspection software focus with a $55 million Series D equity round. Zeitview lined up the equity raise with Valor Equity Partners, Union Square Ventures, Upfront Ventures, Euclidean Capital, Energy Transition Ventures, and Hearst Ventures. The funding supports the company’s AI-enabled software and global footprint in advanced inspection solutions across a burgeoning utility-scale solar market, among other markets served.
Last year the company launched the North American Solar Scan. Zeitview’s solar asset rating issues real-time ratings from A to D for operational solar projects of 1 MW and larger. The asset rating system provides data and analytics based on equipment, temperature and operating rating performance metrics. Similar to a project finance or credit ratings agency, solar projects can now carry a triple-letter rating from ‘AAA’ or ‘AAB,’ down to grade ‘D.’
Founded in 2015, the company expects to scale up its aerial data capturing solutions to scan 200 GW of solar assets this year, as its solar rating platform takes flight from 43 GW of solar assets scanned last year.
Solar asset owners such as SMA are finding that aerial inspections using drones and manned aircraft are the optimal way of managing and maintaining large solar installations. SMA has O&M contracts for over 1,000 sites, from small commercial of 30 kW and up to large-scale installations of over 600 MW.
Aerial inspections have great benefits to the solar industry. An unmanned drone can reportedly inspect about 20 MW per day per drone operator for on-demand thermal inspections or spot checks, while manned aircraft can capture over 500 MW in a 4-hour period. SMA uses both unmanned drones and airplanes to complete its inspections, finding aerial imaging far superior to “the old way” of doing things, which was manual inspection.
Zeitview will be exhibiting the North American Solar Scan from booth #31 at this week’s Intersolar North America conference, taking place Feb. 14 to 16 in Long Beach, Calif.
