AES
Installing solar panels can be back-breaking work, so one of the largest renewable energy companies is using robots to do the heavy lifting.
AES Corporation on Tuesday introduced "Maximo," an AI-powered robot that can lift solar panels and precisely place them into long rows. The robot will be used to construct the largest solar farm with battery storage in the US, which will help power Amazon's data centers.
"We are really focused on speed," Chris Shelton, AES' chief product officer, said during a call with reporters. "And by speed, we mean speed for the customers — so getting these projects online faster —and speed for the energy transition. The more [solar] we can deploy, the more we can reduce overall carbon in the economy."
AES said Maximo can install solar panels twice as fast as humans and at half the cost. The robot was tested in various outdoor conditions at projects in New York, Virginia, Ohio, and Louisiana and has installed about 10 megawatts of energy to date. The solar farm AES is building in Kern County, California, to power Amazon's operations is expected to have 200 times that capacity.
The automation comes as analysts predict there won't be enough workers to keep pace with the rapid rise in solar demand, especially now that the Biden administration is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into renewable energy under the Inflation Reduction Act. In 2021, the administration forecasted that the solar workforce needed to at least double to 500,000 workers by 2035 to reach a national goal of 100% carbon-free electricity that year.
Amazon and other big tech companies are driving a lot of the demand for renewable energy. They have ambitious climate goals, yet are building out power-hungry data centers to store our data and develop AI. In some states, those power demands are delaying the closure of dirty power plants.
Quickly scaling up solar farms and battery storage is key to keeping corporate climate promises. But adding Maximo to solar sites could also fuel concerns that robots will dim human job prospects, just as automation replaced some factory jobs.
Ron Rodrique, vice president of project management at AES Clean Energy, said Maximo isn't replacing human solar installers at the company's projects.
"Maximo is not out there to replace the panel installers or other people that we have on our sites," Rodrique said. "This is really about that safety aspect of taking away some of the heavy lifting that people have to do."
AES Corporation
Lifting 60-pound solar panels repeatedly, in some cases 200 panels a day, in desert heat takes a toll on the body. If that isn't a requirement of the job, Rodrique said a broader range of workers could apply, including people with disabilities.
AES said Maximo has one person driving the robot while another monitors and controls its movements with a single button press.
The project with Amazon is just the beginning. If all goes well, AES expects Maximo to help clear a huge backlog of solar projects over the next three years, with the largest customers being data center hyperscalers.
