Ecoppia announces world's first completely autonomously-cleaned solar energy park

HERZELIYA, ISRAEL: Ecoppia, an innovative developer of autonomous water-free photovoltaic solar panel cleaning solutions, announced that the Ketura Sun solar park in Israel's Negev desert, jointly owned by Siemens AG and solar energy pioneer Arava Power, is now the world's first autonomously-cleaned solar energy production facility.

The 8-hectare facility, producing 9 million kilowatt hours per year, is cleaned nightly by a fleet of almost 100 water-free, energy-independent Ecoppia E4 robots.

Soiling - the accumulation of dirt and dust on photovoltaic solar panel surfaces - is one of the greatest impediments to solar energy production, and can reduce panel energy output by up to 35%. Located in the hot southern stretch of Israel's Negev desert, between the Gulf of Aqaba and the southern tip of the Dead Sea, Ketura Sun suffers from frequent sand storms and virtually no rain.

Due to the expense of traditional, labor-intensive, water-based cleaning, Ketura Sun's solar panels were only cleaned some nine times a year. This manual panel cleaning would take up to five days, during which time the field operated sub-optimally and work crews endangered sensitive equipment. In the interim between cleaning cycles, the park suffered significant electricity production degradation due to soiling.