Raptor Maps Blog

A step-by-step guide to obtaining an FAA Part 107 license for use on a utility-scale solar farm.

Training technicians to fly drones is a powerful tool for solar asset management. This is how to put internal data collection workflows in place.

Nikhil Vadhavkar, Raptor Maps Cofounder and CEO, had the following reflections following Solarplaza Summit Asset Management North America this year, where he participated in the panel “O&M Automation: The Rise of Robots.”

At RaptorCon 2024, Raptor Maps’ second annual solar executive conference, Raptor Maps Co-founder and CTO Eddie Obropta spoke about how artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a transformative role in solar operations and highlighted how AI is integrated into Raptor Maps’ new product offering, Raptor Solar DG.

As commercial and industrial solar (C&I) grows, so too do the complexities of operations and maintenance (O&M), presenting unique challenges that demand innovative solutions.

Data is power, which is why we’re excited to introduce our Digital Twin 2.0, with even more intuitive navigation between data layers and interactive insights into the performance and health of your solar fleet.

As the solar industry grows and evolves, cutting-edge tools like robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are playing an increasingly crucial role.

In today's fast-evolving solar industry, the adoption of in-house data collection is revolutionizing solar asset management.

Last week Raptor Maps had the pleasure of hosting solar industry leaders at RaptorCon, our second annual solar executive conference. The theme of the conference was “Sustaining Solar's Dominance in the Energy Transition.”

Managing a diverse solar portfolio efficiently requires cutting-edge tools that empower you to make data-driven decisions. At Raptor Maps, we are excited to introduce several new features to our Raptor Solar platform.

Raptor Maps and Skydio are excited to announce the compatibility of the NDAA compliant Skydio X10 with the Raptor Maps solar asset management platform. This partnership creates a new NDAA compliant data capture method for solar customers seeking deep actionable insights on their sites.

Last week, Raptor Maps participated in RE+, one of the nation's premier clean energy conferences. The event was an invaluable opportunity for us to engage in insightful conversations with leaders and professionals from the solar industry.

It takes more to make a solar farm pay than a lot of PV modules and sunny days. One of the biggest challenges is managing an installation to get the most out of the significant capital costs involved in building the asset.

As the utility-scale solar market continues to mature, an unprecedented number of solar assets are reaching the end of their warranty coverage. This significant milestone presents both challenges and opportunities for solar site owners and operators.

Raptor Maps, in collaboration with First Solar, the leading U.S. domestic manufacturer of solar panels, has made significant strides in the assessment of thin-film PV panel anomalies. By leveraging the firms’ joint expertise and resources, the partnership has resulted in enhanced efficiency for identifying glass crack anomalies in thin-film panels via drone-based aerial inspections.

A digital twin uses solar site records to ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of a solar site Mitigating asset underperformance on solar farms is of primary importance to asset managers, and map-based solar digital twins present detailed analyses that allow teams to increase power production, reduce risks, and lower operating costs.

Drone-in-a-Box tech is likely to be standard on large-scale utility solar facilities in the next 1-2 years Operations and maintenance of utility-scale solar farms is a balancing act of safely maximizing system performance while reducing OPEX (Operating Expenses). Safety is non-negotiable, so the focus is finding a balance between system performance and OPEX.

Quickly extract insights on inverter performance to spot degradation and boost power production. Raptor Maps‘ new Production Analytics for inverters feature substantially enhances the company’s flagship Raptor Solar software-as-a-service (SaaS) product.

rend responsible for tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue annually Boston, MA, February 27, 2023 — Raptor Maps, the leading provider of solar lifecycle management software, published the fifth edition of its Global Solar Report, with data that strikingly illustrates the underperformance of solar assets.

Annual report spotlights solar asset management tools for addressing underperformance Raptor Maps, the leading solar asset management software provider, is one of several industry leaders analyzing solar asset underperformance in kWh Analytics’ 2023 Solar Risk Assessment Report. The report provides wide-ranging insights into risks associated with the solar industry.

Technology can assist in the smooth functioning of solar sites located on water Floating solar farms, which are constructed on a body of water, are an innovative approach to harnessing solar power and an increasingly popular way to meet the ever-growing demand for renewable energy.

Raptor Maps’ in-house podcast profiles leaders in the solar industry. This January, Raptor Maps launched Raptor Report, a podcast covering the latest developments in the solar industry, featuring industry insiders ranging from engineers to executives. The podcast, which is released every second Monday, is hosted by Raptor Maps Data Manager Stephen Glaus and Head of Knowledge Don Nista.

New update enables “hands-off” solar farm inspections. Raptor Maps, a leading provider of solar software, is collaborating with DJI to provide input and testing for the latest update to DJI’s Pilot 2 flight planning software (update notes). Available for the Mavic 3T (M3T) drone, the update further improves the M3T drone’s ability to efficiently and accurately capture data for solar farm inspections, reduces user error, and ultimately allows for a “hands-off” aerial thermography inspection from start to finish that complies with Raptor Maps’ data capture standards.

Key Takeaways Software-based solutions dramatically reduce the staffing needed for manual data entry for asset owners and C&I developers Raptor Solar helps users streamline, standardize, and automate reporting so that it is customized for different stakeholders Reliable datasets lead to insightful and cost-saving analyses for asset managers and investors

Raptor Maps hosted its first-ever conference, RaptorCon, last week in Austin, Texas. The conference brought together top industry leaders to discuss the "Digital Future of Solar" and to share unique and tech-forward approaches to the solar industry’s pain points.

Legacy processes are everywhere in solar, and here at Raptor Maps we’re committed to moving them forward so the industry can scale. Our recent product iterations have focused on digitizing some of the more painful outdated systems that are in place — like, say, having to review policies, track different email threads, and manage Excel files just to submit a warranty claim.

PV module shading comes from a wide variety of sources, including trees, ground vegetation, soiling, adjacent rows, and debris. While each instance of shading is unique and can affect power production to varying degrees, there has been little investigation into whether shading of a single string happens in isolation, or whether it also affects neighboring, non-shaded strings and modules within those strings.

Steps for building technical resilience for solar plants given the increasing frequency of extreme weather Hurricane Ian’s trajectory is expected to affect roughly 800 solar farms with 14GW of peak power capacity, underlining that owners and operators of utility-scale solar installations have an increasing need to take meaningful steps to mitigate risks and preserve energy output.

An investigation into how long pilots should wait for PV inverters to come online before beginning an IR inspection Having all solar modules online is a precondition for solar farm inspections, but large solar PV equipment, including inverters, are often offline for preventative maintenance, curtailment, or scheduled outages.

Raptor Maps found that power affected by anomalies increased to 2.63% last year as large-scale solar installations become more common. BOSTON, MA, Aug 10, 2022 ― Raptor Maps, the leading provider of solar lifecycle management software, is one of several industry leaders that contributed to kWh Analytics’ 2022 Solar Risk Assessment Report.

Analytics and benchmarking software finds 2.63% of power affected across 20GW. BOSTON, MA, March 10, 2022 — Raptor Maps, the leading provider of solar lifecycle management software, published their fourth annual report on global PV system underperformance. The company used machine learning to analyze 2021 data from unmanned and manned aircraft inspections across 20 GW of utility and C&I systems.

A digital twin based on your as-built empowers your company to track where solar modules come from, lift productivity, and reduce risks and expenses. In this audio transcript from the Watts Up podcast, Nikhil Vadhavkar, CEO and co-founder of Raptor Maps, explains how we use smartphones to log solar module serial numbers into a digital twin of a solar site.

How did Raptor Maps, the leading solar lifecycle software company, get started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? And what was the original idea that sparked it all? This Watts Up podcast episode has the answer. The company developed Raptor Solar to improve solar project performance and strengthen ROI.

Revealing the origins of solar panels can uncover labor and toxicity problems that can occur during manufacturing processes. But this year’s protocol and commitment from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) showed that clarifying the obscurity of the solar supply chain is less easy than it might sound.

Solar energy supply chains have been delayed due to the COVID health crisis — impacting everything from PV modules to inverters to brackets. This can put solar asset construction projects on hold. In response, the U.S. government moved to protect the solar industry from economic adversity by supporting the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Relief Tax Act of 2020 and publishing Notice 2021-41.

Analytics and insights software platform, Raptor Solar, now includes regularly refreshed inspection analytics, normalization of data and a host of new productivity tools. BOSTON, MA, November 30, 2021 ― Raptor Maps has launched several new features for its analytics and insights software platform, Raptor Solar, aimed at improving productivity, lifting performance and increasing ROI of solar assets.

Leading EPC turns to latest technology to map 300+ MW PV system. ANAHEIM, CA—Rosendin Electric, the nation’s largest employee-owned electrical contracting company, announced a software launch partnership today with Raptor Maps to capture PV module (solar panel) serial numbers for a 300+ MW PV system under construction. Dozens of users simultaneously used Raptor Maps software on their smartphones to scan nearly 1 million serial numbers directly into a digital twin.

Raptor Maps – Solar software company publishes best practices to reduce risk and increase production and IRR. Raptor Maps released an industry-first manual for solar PV inspections with manned aircraft. The manual supplements best practices and training materials that the company has previously published for drones.

This article was originally published on the Solar Builder Magazine website. They asked us to share the latest trends in the industry, specifically — where should owners and operators focus their efforts? Here is what Nikhil Vadhavkar, co-founder and CEO, had to say. He is an MIT engineer, Y combinator alum, and PV system remote sensing expert.

Software company reveals record-high collaboration between users in annual benchmarking report. BOSTON–Raptor Maps, a leading provider of solar lifecycle management software, released its third annual report on causation and frequency of PV system underperformance.

Aerial thermography is now the rule, rather than the exception in the solar industry. Requests for proposals will include a scope such as “Perform an aerial thermography analysis of 100% of the PV modules using a qualified supplier with appropriate expertise on an annual basis,” and include specific requirements for use cases such as commissioning, preventative maintenance, and warranty claims.

In the first edition of the Client Highlight series, we’re honoring Cypress Creek Renewables, one of the United States’ leading solar and storage companies and a partner of ours. Who is Cypress Creek Renewables?

Study Finds Utility-Scale Solar Plants Degrade More Than Owners Initially Assume Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently published a report in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.

Greentown Labs, the world’s largest cleantech incubator, hosts Raptor Maps and Enel Green Power to discuss start-up and corporate partnerships. Greentown Labs invited Raptor Maps, a member company of the cleantech incubator, to a Fireside chat with corporate partners, Enel Green Power.

Owner-Operator to Require its EPC and O&M Contractors to Utilize Standardized Software for Commissioning and Preventative Maintenance to Make Data-Driven Decisions Madison Energy Investments, an asset owner, manager, and financier whose experience totals over $1 Billion of asset management, have selected Raptor Maps, a solar software company specializing in transparent PV asset performance reporting and data analysis, to support their growing solar operation throughout the entire lifecycle.

“Rarely does a single investment yield both significant social and financial benefit. In this way, solar is unique: this rapidly growing asset class offers the promise of substantial returns on investment in both.” -kWh Analytics, producer of the Solar Risk Assessment Report.

Start Successfully Inspecting Solar PV Systems with Thermal Imaging Drones This is the second part of the two-part series on the most effective and efficient ways to inspect a solar PV system with a thermal imaging UAV (drone) also equipped with a high-definition visual (RGB) camera.

Innovation in the Solar PV Industry The processes for inspecting solar PV systems has changed greatly over the last few years. Recently the use of a drone (UAV) or manned aircraft (plane) equipped with a radiometric thermal camera and high-definition visual camera to perform an aerial thermography inspection over a solar PV system has become widely adopted.

Raptor Maps recently released a case study that reports on five heavily impacted sites owned and managed by a large, U.S.-based asset owner. The owner’s solar portfolio totals more than 410 MW of PV assets across the United States. This case study analyzes five PV systems of over 280 MWs, ranging in size from 1 to 200 MWs, and site locations distributed across the U.S.

Begin Improving Portfolio Profitability Asset owners share the interest of maximizing a site’s production with its investors. When key steps are taken to improve asset management and operational efficiency a portfolio’s performance increases and savings are passed onto investors.

Comprehensive Level The following series breaks down the three most common levels of aerial thermography inspections used by Raptor Maps to identify defects, faults, and anomalies affecting PV system performance. The inspections; Overview, Standard, and Comprehensive, differ in flight altitude, data capture time, level of analysis, and the level of detail in the final deliverables.

Standard Level The following series breaks down the three most common levels of aerial thermography inspections used by Raptor Maps to identify defects, faults, and anomalies affecting PV system performance. The inspections; Overview, Standard, and Comprehensive, differ in flight altitude, data capture time, level of analysis, and the level of detail in the final deliverables.

Overview Level The following series breaks down the three most common levels of aerial thermography inspections used by Raptor Maps to identify defects, faults, and anomalies affecting PV system performance. The inspections; Overview, Standard, and Comprehensive, differ in flight altitude, data capture time, level of analysis, and the level of detail in the final deliverables.

Solar PV Commissioning and Aerial Thermography Solar Photovoltaic (PV) systems are the world’s fastest-growing source of renewable energy, holding an annual growth rate of 50% over the last 10 years.

Benefit from Optimization Solar PV is one of the world’s fastest-growing sources of renewable energy, with 2.1 GW installed during Q2 of 2019 in the United States alone. As the amount of PV installations increase, the construction process will need to be streamlined to keep up with the growing demand. The alternatives are longer project times, increased costs, and a higher risk of future issues.

Today, in the solar industry there are hundreds of drone service providers (DSP) offering aerial inspection services, ranging in quality, experience, deliverables, and price. To ensure you’re getting the most value from each inspection, you should qualify the drone service provider before hiring them.

Raptor Maps partnered with FLIR Systems for a live 5-part webinar series on the use of thermal drones in solar inspections. The 5th part was a live Q&A webinar, the following summary of the questions asked and our answers can be viewed below.

Using Drones and Software to Support Warranty Inspections Aerial PV system inspections can be used for a variety of applications and reasons. The purpose of this blog post is to discuss the benefits of using drones and Raptor Maps for the inspections of sites for warranty reasons.

Raptor Maps partnered with FLIR for a five-part series with four videos and a live Q&A webinar on the use of thermal drones for solar inspection. The 4 part video series covers a variety of topics, such as the benefits of thermal cameras in solar inspections, best practices for inspections, questions to ask before hiring a service provider, and the limitations of thermal drones in solar inspections.

Raptor Maps partnered with FLIR for a five-part series with four videos and a live Q&A webinar on the use of thermal drones for solar inspection. The 4 part video series covers a variety of topics, such as the benefits of thermal cameras in solar inspections, best practices for inspections, questions to ask before hiring a service provider, and the limitations of thermal drones in solar inspections.

Raptor Maps partnered with FLIR for a five-part series with four videos and a live Q&A webinar on the use of thermal drones for solar inspection. The 4 part video series covers a variety of topics, such as the benefits of thermal cameras in solar inspections, best practices for inspections, questions to ask before hiring a service provider, and the limitations of thermal drones in solar inspections.

Raptor Maps partnered with FLIR for a five-part series with four videos and a live Q&A webinar on the use of thermal drones for solar inspection. The 4 part video series covers a variety of topics, such as the benefits of thermal cameras in solar inspections, best practices for inspections, questions to ask before hiring a service provider, and the limitations of thermal drones in solar inspections. 

Understanding GSD (AKA Thermal Image Resolution) and How Altitude Affects Your Inspection Costs and Efficiency Important Aspects to Successfully Inspect a Solar Farm: Part 2

Blue Bear Capital leads the round, with support from Congruent Ventures and Powerhouse Ventures, to support growing demand for Raptor Maps software. Raptor Maps, the global leader in aerial inspection software for PV systems, announced a new round of funding from veteran energy investors.

senseFly introduces the Solar 360 thermal drone solution with Raptor Maps for uniquely efficient solar farm inspections We’re excited to announce that Raptor Maps, a Boston-based enterprise software company, has partnered with the Swiss-based drone provider senseFLY on the new senseFLY Solar 360.

SOLV will use Raptor Maps’ industry-leading AI analytics and reporting software for all PV plant drone inspections performed by the SOLV team Raptor Maps, a Boston-based software company focused on helping enterprise solar companies adopt drone technology to reduce asset management costs and increase plant production, is proud to announce that it has been chosen to support SOLVs drone operations in regards to post-processing and reporting on PV plant inspections.

Important Aspects to Successfully Inspect a Solar Farm: Part 1 How to Reduce Your Drone Solar Farm Inspection Time & Costs by 75% This is the first of several articles posted in a series to help you understand how to successfully inspect a solar farm with a drone and thermal camera. The goal of this specific post is to clarify how to reduce your drone solar inspection and flight time by more than 75%* by adjusting the sidelap (lateral overlap) of your drone flight to 20%.

Welcome to the Raptor Maps guide to obtaining a Remote Pilot certification. You may hear the Remote Pilot certification referred to as the “Part 107,” as this certification enables you to fly small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) as specified by Part 107 of the Federal Aviation Regulations.

Solar companies involved in the design, build, management, and/or maintenance of PV systems are increasingly moving to UAS (drones) to replace field work that take large amounts of time and money. Field walks, IV curve tests, voltage checks, and handheld thermal scans of modules are just a few examples of tasks being replaced with drones by O&M teams around the world. Drones set up with both thermal (IR) and high-resolution (RGB) imaging cameras allow for common mislabeled anomalies (ie. soiling) to be properly identified and not mistaken for module hot spots.

The renewable energy sector has seen a tremendous amount of growth over the last few years, and PV (solar) has shifted to the forefront of new clean energy development. In fact according to SEIA, Solar has ranked first or second in new electric capacity additions in each of the last 5 years.”

Collecting aerial solar inspection data using your drone can be tricky. With numerous factors impacting the outcome of your data, it is essential to plan drone flights. People often ask Raptor Maps what’s the best way to collect clear and report-worthy data?

Solar companies involved in the design, build, management, and/or maintenance of PV systems are increasingly adopting UAS (drones) to replace field work that takes large amounts of time and money. Field walks, IV curve tests, voltage checks, and handheld thermal scans of modules are just a few examples of tasks being replaced with drones by Asset Management and O&M teams around the world.

Raptor Maps is excited to announce we were recently selected as a finalist for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s (MassCEC) latest round of InnovateMass awardees. We will be collaborating with Enel Green Power (EGP) to develop brand new capabilities combining machine learning with state-of-the-art drones and IR cameras for the inspection of PV systems.

Raptor Maps partnered with Gresco for a webinar covering the specifics of UAS, Solar Software, and PV System Inspection Reports. The goals of the webinar were to break down: Why UAS (drones) are a valuable tool when it comes to managing and inspecting solar farm(s) for performance issues

Do you design, build, manage, and/or own PV plants? UAS are quickly becoming common tools used in every stage of a solar project. From inspecting a site for planning, monitoring construction progress, and even replacing manual preventative maintenance inspections with thermal and high-resolution UAS inspections, drones are helping utility and energy teams lower operating costs, increase system performance, and standardize & compare assets across a portfolio.

Greentech Media (GTM), a leading platform in the global energy market, recently recognized Raptor Maps as one of the ‘5 Software Startups Solving the Biggest Challenges in Solar’.

Drones are revolutionizing how solar farms are inspected, operated, and maintained. They’re making solar site inspections faster, safer, and delivering more accurate reports on the overall DC health of a site. In this post, we will break down the 5 main ways drones deliver value when used for performing PV system inspections.

Raptor Maps partnered with RMUS on a webinar to cover the specifics of using drones for the inspection of PV systems (solar farms) with both infrared and high-resolution cameras. The goal of the webinar was to break down how to set up a drone flight (equipment and flight app), how to collect the best data, and an overview of what types of deliverables are most valuable to companies involved in building, owning, and managing these sites.

Yes. Despite reducing the time to perform a field inspection by more than 90%, drones still create lots of information that has to be reviewed and converted into usable formats. If you’re new to using drones for PV system inspections, you may think that it’s easier and cheaper to manually review this information.

Greentown Labs has featured Raptor Maps as a startup “paving the way for industrial inspection and AI-driven data reporting.” As drones set up with infrared and high-resolution imaging cameras are being adopted to solar farms, operations and maintenance companies are finding themselves with large quantities of data that needs to be analyzed.

From Turning Propellers to Turning Wrenches Do you provide drone-based PV system (solar farm) inspection services? Are you trying to break into the solar industry and provide solar farm inspections for new clients? Are you interested in learning about how you can deliver useful solar farm management reports to your clients? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this webinar is for you!

Thank you to everyone who participated in Raptor Maps’ first drone inspection contest focused on solar farm inspections! We held a drone inspection contest last month to promote Raptor Maps’ analytics product, Thermal PV Inspections and Analytics, and showcase some of the best drone pilots, service providers, and aerial thermographers on Earth.

In partnership with FLIR Systems, the world’s largest supplier of thermal imaging technology, Raptor Maps recently hosted a webinar to cover the basics of inspecting solar farms with drones. With 1,500 registered viewers, we reached an unprecedented audience interested in applying this technology to detect issues and optimize asset management.

In partnership with FLIR Systems, the world’s largest supplier of thermal imaging technology, Raptor Maps recently hosted a webinar to cover the basics of inspecting solar farms with drones. With 1,500 registered viewers, we reached an unprecedented audience interested in applying this technology to detect issues and optimize asset management.

Put Drones to Work for Your Business. Find out how here. Drones are reducing labor costs, maximizing performance, and providing granular insights for PV systems. The technology is now mature enough to support aerial thermography, capturing PV system performance data with thermal infrared (IR) cameras.

The 5 Fundamentals of Inspecting PV Systems with a Drone Are you using drones to inspect solar farms? Solar farm inspection is the leading industrial application for infrared (IR) thermal imaging with drones. Solar power is the fastest-growing source of new energy in the world, with 2018 expected to be a record-breaking year.

The solar industry is growing exponentially. There are now over 300 GW of capacity in the world1, including 47 GW in the United States2. Operations and maintenance (O&M) providers are responsible for the upkeep of large photovoltaic systems (solar farms), and they are increasingly turning to drones to reduce maintenance costs and increase power generation.

Jon McBride at RMUS hosts Raptor Maps’ Eddie Obropta and Nikhil Vadhavkar for a webinar about thermal mapping and drone data management. In this webinar, we discuss post-processing, virtual inspection, and most importantly, deliverables generation.Want to win a free radiometric map? Don’t miss out on our contest!

Yesterday, MIT launched The Engine (engine.xyz) to tackle “tough tech” challenges that will have widespread global impact. The Engine is bringing together funding, specialized equipment, affordable workspace, and startup expertise to further the institute’s goal of bringing “knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges.”

The buzz on drones: South Jersey hopes to soar on unmanned wings By Martin DeAngelis, Staff Writer, Press of Atlantic City Read the full article here. Eddie Obropta went from Middle Township High School to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in aerospace engineering.

Raptor Maps Uses Drones to Help Farmers Get Better Crops By Y Combinator Read the original article here. Raptor Maps helps produce farmers grow more and better crops using drones and tractor-mounted sensors. In doing so, they’ve created an affordable system for farmers to perform controlled experiments on their farm to know exactly where the good crop came from and why.

MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics launches a new generation of innovators. By Leda Zimmerman, School of Engineering Read the original article here.

Raptor Maps, Inc. was granted an exemption under FAA Section 333. This allows Raptor Maps to conduct commercial daylight operations using specified sUAS (Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems) under 55 lb. Use cases include agriculture mapping, infrastructure inspection, and forestry and wildlife management.

The Cambridge City Council authored a resolution of support for Raptor Maps and congratulated the team for winning the 25th annual MIT Entrepreneurship Competition. We appreciate the support of both MIT and Cambridge, and are very fortunate to be located in this hub of entrepreneurship.

We are happy to announce that Raptor Maps won the 25th annual MIT 100K entrepreneurship competition! We were one of 194 teams that participated. The competition helped us hone our business strategy for a successful launch. Thank you to all the organizers, donors, and mentors who made the competition possible.