DustIQ one of the Winners of the Iberdrola Challenge
Published: Friday, March 20, 2020
Kipp & Zonen’s DustIQ for soiling monitoring was selected as one of the four winners of the second Startup Challenge of the Spanish company Iberdrola: Photovoltaic cleaning. In 2019 the company invited companies from all over the world to present low-cost waterless solutions to improve cleaning procedures for solar panels in large-scale PV projects.
DustIQ was recognized for its unique ability to measure soiling of PV modules maintenance free. Using the two integrated sensors, operators of large scale PV parks can set alarms and plan actions when the PV modules are getting dirty and energy output is decreasing because of it.
The Spanish company Iberdrola was looking for systems that could apply to PV parks with fixed panels, with multi-row single-axis tracker, single-row tracker and other kinds of different park configurations. DustIQ is easily mounted next to or in between PV modules because the dimensions and materials used are similar. With a few small modifications the DustIQ can even work upside down for bifacial PV parks.
Iberdrola: “DustIQ gathers real data on daily soiling — currently estimates are made based on monthly rainfall and estimated production — making it possible to differentiate between production losses attributable to dirt and to other factors — deterioration, etc. — and make operational and maintenance decisions, e.g. assessing the efficiency of different robots, organizing cleaning schedules, etc.”
Next phase of the Startup Challenge on Photovoltaic Cleaning
Now that the winners of the Challenge have been selected, the next phase is to test the solutions in a pilot project. DustIQ will be installed in the Summer of 2020 in a PV microproject in Núñez de Balboa, Spain. Iberdrola is a leader in energy from Renewable sources in Spain with an installed capacity of 15,828 MW. The Núñez de Balboa project will be the biggest PV plant in Europe using 1,403,000 PV panels and with an installed capacity of 500 MW will supply clean energy to 250,000 people.
Donald van Velsen, product manager at Kipp & Zonen: “ We’re excited that Iberdrola has recognized the potential of our reliable, maintenance free soiling measurement solution and we can’t wait to get started. “
DustIQ won in the category of dirt detectors. Congratulations to the other winners:
- SCM, in the category of multi-row robots.
- SolarCleano, in the category of single-row robots.
- Moresun, in the category of coatings.
We look forward working with you at Núñez de Balboa!