Solar Farm Inspection

A 100 MW solar farm has hundreds of thousands of panels, and any one of them could be quietly costing you money. Manual thermal inspection takes weeks per cycle, so faulty modules, string failures, and connector issues go undetected for months.

A solar inspection drone flying autonomously from a dock finds those faults on a fixed cadence, in thermal and visual, with no inspection contractor required.

What is Solar Farm Inspection and How it Works

Drone inspection of solar farms has traditionally been scheduled, not on-demand, so issues accumulate between contractor visits. A docked drone makes the capability continuous: it flies scheduled thermal and visual inspections and pushes defect maps into the operator's asset-management system. For example, a thermal sweep of an array overnight, a visual check for soiling and vegetation, an automatically classified defect list with work orders.

Every flight feeds the asset-management platforms operators already use, turning point-in-time surveys into a continuous record.

Solar farms are large, fenced, and usually in uncontrolled airspace, ideal environments for BVLOS. Remote operations let a single pilot supervise inspection campaigns across a portfolio of sites without leaving the operations centre.

Solar Inspection Drones, a Complete Data Capture Solution

Solar inspection isn't a drone, it's an end-to-end system that consists of the right hardware, software that governs, executes and delivers it, and a remote operations centre running it all.

• HubT is the primary platform for an operational farm, installed permanently and integrated with existing infrastructure for routine flights on a fixed cadence.
• HubX is portable and relocatable, the practical choice for project-stage and commissioning work, redeploying across an EPC's portfolio as each site reaches handover.

Many operations run both: HubX through construction and commissioning, HubT once the farm is operational.

The hardware is only half the system. Every flight is governed, executed, and delivered through Sphere's Curo software suite.

• CuroRPA is the compliance and governance foundation, managing flight approvals, records, and pilot and asset management, the backbone that keeps a BVLOS renewables program defensible.
• CuroROC is the remote operations centre platform that plans and flies the autonomous missions, enforcing CuroRPA's compliance on every sortie.
• CuroInsights turns the captured data into decision-ready intelligence, delivered straight to your asset-management and O&M teams.

Workflows enabled

• Routine thermal inspection of operating PV arrays.
• Visual inspection for soiling, vegetation, and physical damage.
• EPC commissioning and handover capture.
• Storage and BESS site monitoring.
• Substation and inverter station condition checks.
• Defect classification and work-order generation.

Expected outcomes

• Defect detection in days instead of months.
• Repeatable, defensible performance evidence for warranty claims.
• Lower inspection cost per MW.
• A continuous inspection cadence instead of annual point-in-time surveys.

Together, HubT or HubX plus the Curo suite, supervised from Sphere's Remote Operations Centre, it's one compliant, repeatable system from take-off to the data on your desk. It suits independent power producers, asset owners, O&M providers, EPCs and commissioning teams, and renewables consultancies.

Find Out How Your Operations Can Benefit

Every solar asset is different, the right mix of HubT and HubX depends on your site size, your inspection cadence, and how defect data feeds your O&M workflow.

A Sphere team member can assess your operation, identify the workflows worth automating first, and model continuous inspection against your current contractor costs.

Book a solar inspection demo to see how autonomous inspection fits your operation.