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Developing data-driven monitoring and low-water cleaning for solar PV
Main TrackRenewable EnergyEDP Renewables
Up to S$50,000 in POC / pilot fundingUp to S$50,000 POC Development Grant
EDP Renewables (EDPR)
is a global company that develops, owns, and operates renewable energy projects, including onshore and offshore wind, solar, and green hydrogen assets. It is the renewable energy division of the global energy company EDP. EDPR has a strong presence in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia Pacific, with a focus on driving the energy transition through sustainable and integrated clean energy solutions.
EDP Renewables APAC operates approximately 3,000 solar sites in Singapore, spanning rooftops, ground-mounted farms, and floating PV platforms. While the underlying panel technology is broadly similar, operating environments and accessibility differ significantly, meaning that cleaning methods, logistics, and risks also vary across sites.
Most cleaning is still carried out manually, using motorised brushes and continuous water flow, with semi-automated robotics deployed selectively where suitable. Cleaning follows a calendar-based schedule, with roughly 200 to 300 sites cleaned per year. A typical 0.2 to 0.3MW rooftop requires about one day and two workers to complete.
Soiling patterns are highly non-uniform both across and within sites. Factors such as proximity to highways, building height, and panel placement (whether at the perimeter or centre of a site) affect the level of soiling. Robotic systems, while faster and less water-intensive, weigh around 60 to 70kg, which can stress panels, cause micro-cracks, and they fail to clean edges effectively. Ground-mounted sites, comprising about 10 plots of up to 10MW each, are densely configured with limited aisles and distributed water points, making manual cleaning logistically challenging.
Manual crews are costly and slow, and are exposed to risks from working at height. Robotic cleaning systems, although partially reducing labour, continue to rely heavily on water and are difficult to adapt to different site types. Fixed cleaning schedules further compound inefficiencies by ignoring site- and zone-level soiling variations, leading to wasted water and labour.
EDPR aims to shift from labour-intensive, calendar-based cleaning methods to smarter, condition-based, and low-water approaches that minimise manual intervention while scaling efficiently without increasing manpower.
Part 1: How might we develop a condition-based, data-driven model that helps determine when and where cleaning is needed?
Data sources may include weather-station signals, historical generation data, and cleaning logs. The solution should enable site- and intra-site cleaning recommendations to replace calendar-based scheduling, improving operational efficiency and reducing unnecessary resource use.
Solutions could include drone-based, mechanical, or nano-coating approaches, provided they are scalable, safe, and compatible across rooftop and ground-mounted systems.
EDPR is open to piloting two separate solutions or an end-to-end approach combining both.
Requirements
Technical Requirements for Part 1:
- Should be compatible with existing EDPR monitoring systems for real-time or near real-time data integration.
- Should feature a user interface (dashboard) capable of ranking sites or zones by soiling severity and estimated energy loss.
- Should generate actionable insights and trigger cleaning recommendations or alerts through API, email, or dashboard visualisation.
- Must be scalable across hundreds of distributed rooftop systems without site-specific customisation.
- Should allow data visualisation at both portfolio and individual site levels.
Technical Requirements for Part 2:
- Must be applicable across multiple PV configurations, including rooftop and ground-mounted systems.
- Must be safe for work-at-height environments, without compromising structural or electrical integrity.
- Must have low power consumption; ideally solar- or battery-powered if hardware is used.
- Must impose minimal additional load on rooftops and floating systems.
- Must enable data-driven decision-making, with cleaning triggered only when performance data indicates soiling-related energy loss.
- Must operate with minimal or no water use, employing alternative technologies (mechanical, air, electrostatic, coatings, etc.)
- Must be durable and reliable under UV exposure, humidity, rain, and heat.
- Must be operable by one or two personnel where manual intervention is necessary.
- Must handle large PV areas, capable of treating at least 500 kWp within one hour on rooftops.
- Should include self-diagnostics and system health monitoring to track performance over time.
- Should be lightweight and modular to reduce risk of panel stress or micro-cracks during operation.
- Avoid approaches that require excessive water consumption, depend heavily on manual inspections, or involve complex mechanical retrofits that are not scalable across diverse site configurations.
- Should support remote supervision or alert-based monitoring for operations teams.
Performance Requirements for Part 1:
- Should generate data outputs or dashboards to identify high- and low-soiling areas, enabling differentiated cleaning strategies across Singapore sites.
Performance Requirements for Part 2:
- Must demonstrate measurable energy generation improvement of at least 2 to 3% over uncleaned panels during the prototype stage.
- Must achieve at least 70% water-use reduction or be fully waterless.
- Must maintain consistent energy performance and minimal degradation across different site environments and seasons.
- Must comply with work-at-height safety and electrical isolation standards.
Financial Consideration:
- The solution should aim to cost a maximum of S$2,000 to 2,500 per MWp per year in OPEX, a 30 to 40% cost savings compared to current cleaning costs.
Potential Sustainability Impact:
- At least 70% reduction in water use or implement a fully waterless solution
- Replacement of calendar-based cleaning with data-driven scheduling to avoid unnecessary cleaning
- Reduction in travel, manpower, and cleaning logistics across 3,000 sites in Singapore
- Potential to adapt data-driven cleaning insights for other solar asset owners in high-dust regions
POC / Pilot & Incentives
Expected POC / Pilot & Timeline:
- Prototype: Ideally within 6 months of selection; must demonstrate an ability to achieve at least 2 to 3% performance improvement and at least 70% reduction in water use
- Full deployable product: Within 12 to 18 months, scalable across rooftop and ground PV sites
- Access to diverse test sites in Singapore, supported by EDPR’s asset operations team
- Test sites will include technical support, site access coordination, and data-sharing to validate cleaning or modelling outcomes.
POC / Pilot Funding:
- EDPR will provide milestone-based POC / pilot funding of up to S$50,000.
- Enterprise Singapore is augmenting this support with a POC development grant of up to S$50,000 for eligible startups / SMEs. Foreign startups / SMEs may be considered if developmental activities are based in Singapore and only if a Singapore office is incorporated. The POC Development grant could also be awarded to startups / SMEs incorporated in Singapore for projects with overseas pilot deployment potential.
POC / Pilot Support:
- Pilot site access with technical support from the asset operations team
- Access to historical performance and cleaning data for training and validation
- Collaboration with EDPR engineers for data interpretation and testing oversight
Further Opportunities:
- A successful pilot may be deployed across EDPR’s network of 3,000 sites in Singapore, with potential for further expansion across its regional operations.
Info Session
Check out the recording from our Info Session, where Lidl & Kaufland Asia shared more about their challenge statement.
RESOURCES
Info Session Recording
Revisit the detailed presentation on this challenge statement from our virtual Info Session.
Next Steps
Still have questions?
- Write to us at info@padang.co with any questions.
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