Manish Bhuptani (right), Managing Director of TUV India, and V Viswanathan, Senior Vice President Infra, Rail, Renewable at TUV India, presenting the UAV which was used for assessment and inspection.
TUV India has for the first time conducted an assessment and inspection of a solar power project using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), popularly known as a drone. The 25MW solar power plant is located about 160 km from Bengaluru in Southern India and is spread over 90 acres.
The experts from TUV India planned the first drone flight with great precision. The scope of this assessment in the first phase of the project included a topographical and terrain survey, coordinate measurements of the land, trench depth, pile foundation, module mounting structure (MMS) and measurements, including the distance between the poles, tilt or length, cable laying, substation, a transmission line survey and a general overview of the project.
After the flight, the collected data were processed and saved in a CAD file for documentation. Having carefully interpreted the results, the experts submitted a report of this first phase to the client. The next stage will see the installation of the solar panels. Once the PV power plant has been running for at least six months, TUV India will conduct the second and final assessment of the project.
“Having executed our first solar Power project successfully by means of drone inspection, we are now confident of our ability to replicate and make use of this technology for the assessment, surveillance and inspection of infrastructure projects such as railways, roads, sea ports, airports, cross country pipelines, wind farms, terminals and large tank farms,” says Manish Bhuptani, Managing Director at TUV India.