Augmented Reality Revolutionizing Solar Industry
The Solar industry has experienced tremendous growth in past years, with the percentage of solar installations increasing day by day.
However, there are many unexpected challenges with solar electrification that entrepreneurs are learning about while doing business in these sectors, including installation and maintenance, deployment remote locations, and high cost.
Installation and maintenance, in particular, is often underemphasized, but it is just as important as the other challenges that make solar-powered electrification a tricky prospect.
One major hurdle for installing solar panels is the lack of skilled workers to do the job. Some companies are hiring and training dedicated installation crews to travel around vast areas doing the work. The problem with this arrangement, though, is that traveling between job sites is inefficient, and any downtime becomes very costly for companies trying to keep dedicated crews on payroll. On the other hand, if these companies hire independent installation crews then ensuring quality standards is harder to do.
Most solar panel installations are a one-time transaction where a customer pays for the panels, equipment and the installation. In these deals, it is often unclear who will pay for maintenance when the solar panels break down. Many companies have little financial capacity to bring repair technicians out to remote locations years later to service panels. And if no one is able or willing to pay for maintenance, the panels go unused and wasted.
There are still many obstacles that can be prevented by adopting new and innovative technologies.
While conservative industries are still observing the action from the sidelines, leading 4.0 industries are reaping the benefits of their investments in AR-enhanced maintenance, repair, and operations practices.
From physical documentation, we moved on to the desktop, then progressed to smart mobile devices and have now reached the hands-free wearable technology era.
Commonly referred to as the “see-what-I-see” remote collaboration, this solution is the new preferred way to have specialized expertise on-site anytime, anywhere. Whenever a new or complex problem arises, field service technicians can now connect with experts to get a faster diagnosis and solution, decreasing repair downtime, saving time and money.
Persistent AR experiences and worker collaboration with the display of real-time 3D annotations on environments and objects help teams solve problems efficiently and with no extra relocation costs.
Augmented reality based Remote Assistance allows remote experts to provide real-time guidance as well as add a virtual object on top of the real-world image and display it on the device of technicians currently in the solar farm.
As solar farms are located far from inhabited centers these are areas that are difficult to reach in case of encountering unexpected problems. Sending experts to these areas leads to process delays but also affects monetary costs. In such cases Augmented Reality-empowered video call can remotely handle installation and troubleshooting requests and support field technicians visually from the office.
If you are interested in incorporating augmented reality based Remote assistance solutions to support your specific needs, Reach out to us!
References-
pv-tech.org
virtualvoyagers.com
wikitude.com
