Hopes AI trial will enhance efficiency at Darlington Point Solar Farm

A newly created machine that detects faults in solar panels remotely is being trialed at locations in both NSW and QLD, including the Darlington Point Solar Farm.

The technology, Solaris AI, is the brain-child of University of QLD Associate Professor Rahul Sharma who says it has the potential to save farms $200 million annually.

"Under performance in Australian solar farms cost the industry around $400 million a year," Professor Sharma said.

"We're aiming for Solaris AI to reduce those losses by half, and potentially deliver an uplift in revenue of up to eight per cent."

The Darlington Point farm is one of the largest in the state, capable of supplying over 130,000 homes with power and with transmission connections to Griffith, Hay, Hillston, Yanco and Wagga.

Professor Sharma aims to begin work at the Darlington Point site in June and July.

"Currently I'm rolling out the technology in north QLD in collaboration with the farm's owners Edify Energy," Professor Sharma said.

"We're not just looking at long established sites; we're also trialing at more recently completed arrays, using the technology as a quality assurance check.

"Even after only the first year or two of being installed, panels can shift and fail.

"Problems can also occur not long after switching on the grid due to issues when the panels were transported for installation," he said.

His machine detects faults in solar farms without the need to install additional hardware, making it fast and cost effective.

It works at the array and string panel level, sequentially extracting vital information, monitoring for degradation, soiling, wiring faults and tracker problems, along with pinpointing any maintenance needed.

"What the technology does is remotely pin point where the faults are and we use the data collected to seek performance analytics," he said.

"Typically, a farm might fork out as much as $400 million to fix these kinds of issues, but the hope with this technology is it will be able to diagnose a problem before it becomes more costly.

"The reality is large solar farms like the one at Darlington Point have more than a million panels so hopefully this technology will be a game changer.

"Solar farms are so important for local communities, both in terms of the energy they generate and for local economies.

"We need to find ways to make them easier to handle so they can reach their full potential for mitigating against greenhouse gas emissions," Professor Sharma said.

Edify Energy CEO and founder John Cole said it was an exciting project.

"The key to maintaining grid reliability and achieving success as a network operator is effective and efficient asset management," Mr Cole said.

"This technology has the potential to drive solutions to the world's energy crisis."