What does a drone thermal inspection detect on a solar farm?

Failed or underperforming strings, cell-level hotspots, bypass-diode failures, cracked modules, PID degradation, soiling, shading and vegetation encroachment, all geo-located to the exact module.

How long does a solar farm inspection take?

A 1 MW site finishes in roughly half a day of flight time. Utility-scale 50+ MW sites take 2-5 days depending on layout. Reports ship within 3-5 business days. Flights are scheduled inside the high-irradiance window (clear-sky, mid-day) so anomalies show clean thermal contrast.

A radiometric GeoTIFF thermal orthomosaic of your full array, an RGB orthomosaic for visual context, a thermal mosaic map with every module-level defect pinned to its location, and a flight conditions log (irradiance window, ambient temp, wind, equipment, operator). We customize the deliverables to suit your O&M workflow, tell us what your team needs.

What hardware do you fly?

Radiometric thermal sensors with sub-50 mK thermal sensitivity (NETD), flown at altitudes that give multiple pixels per module. Every flight records irradiance, ambient temperature and wind so the report is reproducible and defensible.

Do you operate in Saskatchewan as well as Alberta?

Yes. Crews mobilize across Alberta and into western/east-central Saskatchewan. Travel is built into the quote up front.

How much does it cost?

Pricing scales with array size and report depth. Request a quote with your site MW and location and we'll send a fixed price, no surprises.

Solar Farm Drone Thermal Inspection — Alberta & Saskatchewan

How aerial thermal supercharges your ground crews

A drone scan isn't a replacement for your ground crews, it's what makes them efficient. One flight gives you a bird's-eye view of the entire farm and surfaces the problem areas, so you can dispatch crews straight to the panels that need attention instead of walking every row.

Fast fault map

A single flight maps your whole array and hands back a fault map: exactly where the problem panels are. Your crew skips the row-by-row hunt and goes straight to the location.

Complete

Every module imaged, not a sample. Radiometric thermal + RGB overlay means nothing hides between rows.

Precise

Every flagged panel is pinned to its exact location on a geo-referenced thermal map. Your crew sees precisely where to go, visually, before they set foot on site.

Whole-site view

One mosaic map of the entire array gives your team a single bird's-eye reference for every defective module across the site.

What we can detect

Failed / underperforming strings
Cell-level hotspots
Bypass-diode failures
Cracked & shattered modules
PID degradation
Soiling & shading
Vegetation encroachment
Combiner / connector faults

How we work

Every flight is run inside the high-irradiance, low-wind window where thermal anomalies show clean contrast. We log irradiance, ambient temperature, wind speed, equipment and operator on every job, so the scan is reproducible and defensible.

Radiometric hardware

Thermal sensors with sub-50 mK sensitivity (NETD), flown at altitudes that resolve every module to multiple pixels. Radiometric output means we measure absolute temperature, not just relative contrast — the difference between "looks warm" and "this string is down".

Every module imaged

No sampling, no walking rows with a handheld FLIR. A single flight covers the entire array. You see what's actually happening on roof-pitch and interior rows that ground crews physically can't reach.

Module-level mapping

Each flagged anomaly is geo-tagged to the individual module and dropped onto a thermal mosaic map, so your crew can locate every problem panel without hunting.

Annual portfolio scan

One mobilization across your full AB / SK portfolio. Year-over-year radiometric comparison shows degradation trends, lets you triage capex against actual generation loss rather than guesswork.

What you receive

Radiometric GeoTIFF — full-array thermal orthomosaic, importable into QGIS / ArcGIS.
RGB orthomosaic — high-res visual overlay for context.
Thermal mosaic map — every module-level defect pinned to its location across the site.
Flight conditions log — irradiance, temperature, wind, equipment, operator. Audit-trail grade.

Delivered within 3-5 business days of the flight. We customize the deliverables to fit your team's workflow, tell us what your O&M process needs and we'll shape the output to match.

Sample thermal drone solar farm inspection report showing module-level defects, hotspots and strings out across the array

Serving solar across Alberta & Saskatchewan

From utility-scale arrays in Vulcan, Newell and Forty Mile counties to commercial rooftop systems in Edmonton, Calgary and Saskatoon. Crews mobilize anywhere in Alberta and into western and east-central Saskatchewan. Travel built into the quote up front.