Seems weird. How do you service it? How do conductors work? How do you keep random junk from blowing on top of it? How do you clean it? The photo in the story just looks like a giant square of PV material. Is that really what this is?
And then when repair is needed, they just walk on it[1]. Seriously. I'm very curious as to what these pads they mention are like - big foam snow shoes, or walkways they rollout along a seam?
[1] https://www.erthos.com/reducing-degradation-rates-with-earth...
Sounds like they optimized it for their use case:
"The load of the robot is distributed almost entirely to the module frames rather than the glass module"
I wonder what happens after a major rain though. I suppose the panels are weatherproof. But they lie directly on the ground, and I did not notice any mention of a drainage system. The panels will eventually sag under load from rainwater, preventing it from flowing off them.
They mention that their installation can withstand a hurricane. I understand how it works for the wind load, but every hurricane I witnessed brought a lot of rain.
EDIT: Apparently they embrace flooding, and say that their panels and connectors can withstand being submerged in water. That's the spirit.
Image of robot on panels: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3b0818_1667facfc56e475e8f...
The image also seems to show water damage in the corner of the closest panel.
At a guess, they target areas without heavy rainfall, and fast draining soils. I didn’t see any drainage works in the video https://vimeo.com/556421759, nor did my google-fu help me find anything where they address the issue.
Edit: from https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/erthos-rakes-in-1...
How do the installations perform in the rain and snow? “Our hydrology report proves that an Erthos plant is almost the same as native soils with respect to accumulated water depth and velocity in rainstorms. All of our designs include professional civil design that includes water runoff management and containment basins as per the jurisdiction’s application of building code and other local requirements.”
What about flooding? “The glass/ glass modules and the connectors we specify are all rated for submersion, so flooding is not a catastrophic event in case it does occur.”Ever cleaned dried bird droppings off a windshield? I'd be pretty surprised if solar-farm Roomba was up to it.
Why do you think it's ineffective, they could have a pressure washer inside that thing
It appears too small to have enough mass to use gravity to be able to do a thing with dried guano. Also, because it has wheels, it gives me the impression that it moves along and does whatever cleaning its capable of as it goes rather than lingering anywhere to thoroughly clean one spot.
> they could have a pressure washer inside that thing
How big of a water tank do you think?
Edit: The article mentions a 100 MW installation. At 2.5 acres per MW, that is 40 acres or 0.25 miles x 0.25 miles. While there will certainly be some service roads, no matter what the ecosystem was before, it will be covered with something that doesn't support plant material, insects, etc. that may be consumed directly by birds or the small animals upon which birds prey. Birds will find a more hospitable place to poop.
probably there are a lot of possibilities you haven't tried on your windshield yet
3 meter high frames with the panels on top, wide row spacing (about 10x), and crops in the ground. Minimal harvest yield loss (sometimes even improvement, as the shading reduces stress on the plants), and selling power from the same land. It could be marketed as "zero land needed" PV power.
With Erthos's on-ground panels, a robot with fat soft tires rolls over the panels. No walking needed.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/erthos-rakes-in-1...
I assume the conductors will be direct burial cable or single conductors run inside PVC conduit, just like any other outdoor electrical installation. The connectors and junction boxes are probably IP68 rated to handle flooding.
Land costs are still generally irrelevant for solar as in well under 5% the cost of this install and you can recover that after at the end of the panel lifespan.