AES’ innovative solutions are transforming the solar sector

Solar energy is increasingly one of the most cost effective and abundant renewable energy resources in the world. Estimates from BloombergNEF (BNEF) show it is now cheaper to build typical utility-scale PV farms than it is to generate electricity from conventional thermal power stations in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and several more non-EU markets globally[1].

However, for markets and organizations to achieve their net-zero emissions commitments, 455 gigawatt of new solar facilities globally are required each year through 2030, according to BNEF. This is more than three times the capacity installed in 2020.

AES, together with its partners, rolled out two significant projects in the last 18 months that improve the way solar farms are delivered at scale across the globe.

Meet 5B

The first major advance came in the form of AES’ partnership with an Australia-based company named 5B. The name, 5B, refers to the almost infinite amount of energy potential in the 5 billion years of sunshine the earth has left, and is intended to provoke the question ‘How will we use it?’. The team at 5B wants to improve the way the abundant supply of solar power is harvested by lowering the cost of installing and operating gigawatt-scale solar farms while building them faster and smarter.

Their first solution, MAVERICK, is a fully prefabricated, plug & play solar farm in a box. The entire direct current solar system is prefabricated and pre-wired in a safe environment in an assembly facility. Once delivered to the solar farm site, 5B's revolutionary MAVERICK design enables customers to roll out the solar system at a pace that is three times faster than normal while providing up to two times more energy within the same footprint of traditional solar facilities. In fact, a team of three people working with an AES customer deployed it at a pace of 1 megawatt a week.

Furthermore, 5B technology can be deployed using 50% less land than other solar technologies. This characteristic makes clean energy available in places previously thought impossible and contributes to ease the regulatory complexity, lengthy procedures and their uncertain outcomes that can cause delays and make renewable projects more expensive.

Following 5B’s success in its home market of Australia, AES formed a partnership with 5B to bring MAVERICK to the global marketplace. Together with 5B, AES is tearing down the barriers to widespread solar energy adoption, and making it possible for a new wave of customers to use solar energy to meet their clean energy goals.

Introducing Atlas

The second major advance, Atlas, was unveiled in December 2021. It is a new first-of-its-kind solar installation robot, making it faster, more efficient and safer to construct new solar facilities. AES designed Atlas during a multi-year innovation process and constructed it in cooperation with Calvary Robotics and other third parties.

Atlas is a major step forward in solar energy technology and AES teams will use it as a next generation tool that allows to drastically lighten the workload when building new solar projects. Atlas will complement our skilled workforce. The novel solar installation robot places and attaches solar modules, performing the heavy lifting which keeps installers and engineers safe. At the same time, installers can learn and apply more sophisticated and higher value-added skills.

In addition to 5B MAVERICK and Atlas, AES is investing in other innovations to reimagine solar energy. We are co-creating new solutions and meeting customer needs through operations and maintenance improvements. These include:

• Combining solar energy with around the clock solutions that guarantee 24/7 clean energy for our customers;
• Pioneering the world's first DC-coupled solar-plus-storage Peaker Plant solution which fully integrates PV and storage as a power plant and provides dispatchable clean energy in Hawaii[2]; and
• Deploying solar robots from Ecoppia, a company which makes robotic cleaning solutions for photovoltaic solar, to automate the cleaning of panels to ensure peak performance.

The work AES is doing together with its partners to reimagine solar is accelerating the net-zero future of energy. We cannot do it alone. The world will need more talented people to develop new skills in designing, permitting and siting solar farms, bring ground breaking innovation to solar system manufacturing, robotics, and artificial intelligence. We look forward to working together.

For more information, visit AES Reimagining Solar.