The portable Robotic factory system mounts solar equipment including traces, mounting brackets and panels on site and then places it in place via an automated robot vehicle. The first commercial implementations of the company are planned for this year.
US-based Startup Charge Robotics has developed a portable factory system that is able to automate the assembly and installation of sections of a solar park on site.
The company, founded by alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2021, says it wants to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources by automating the most labor -intensive parts of construction.
The mobile factories can be used on the projects of projects, where solar equipment including traces, mounting brackets and panels are entered in the system and assembled into a so-called solar bay. Each bay, which represents a 40-foot (12.1 m) part of the solar farm and weighs around 800 pounds (363 kg), is then placed by an automated robot vehicle.
Charge Robotics has used a prototype system, in collaboration with San Diego-based solar energy company SOLV Energy, which successfully built a solar farm last year. Since then it has collected $ 22 million for its first commercial implementations, planned for later this year.
Since the first implementation, the company says it has made the system faster and easier to operate.
In an interview with MIT, CEO of Charge Robotics and Joint Founder, Banks Hunter, the system explained that the employees let it work remotely robot equipment “instead of using the screws themselves”.
“We can essentially supply the assembled solar energy to customers. Their only responsibility is to deliver the materials and parts on large pallets that we feed in our system, “he added.
Hunter also explained that many of the portable factories can be used at the same time and can be operated for a whole day, so that installation times can be accelerated dramatically.
“We get the limits of solar growth because these companies don’t have enough people,” he added. “We can build much larger sites much faster with the same number of people by simply sending more from our factories. It is a fundamental new way to scale solar energy. “
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