Five decision criteria for leveraging drone surveying in the operation and maintenance of solar power plants

Table of Contents

• Background for why drone surveying is required in the operation and maintenance of solar power plants

• Evaluation criterion 1: Whether the purpose of the on-site verification is consistent with the survey results

• Decision criterion 2: Is it necessary to safely grasp the entire power plant?

• Decision criterion 3 Do you want to continuously monitor changes in topography and drainage?

• Evaluation Criterion 4: Can it be used for equipment layout and updating management ledgers?

• Evaluation criterion 5: Can it be easily shared with stakeholders as inspection records?

• Steps for Integrating Drone Surveying into Maintenance Management

• Summary of Leveraging Drone Surveying in Operation and Maintenance of Solar Power Plants

Background: The need for drone surveying in the operation and maintenance of solar power plants

In the maintenance and management of solar power plants, it is important not only to inspect the power generation equipment itself but also to continuously monitor the condition of the entire site. The range of items to check is wide—panels, mounting structures, wiring, power collection equipment, access roads, slopes and embankments, drainage channels, fences, and surrounding vegetation—and simply walking the site to inspect can make it difficult to grasp the whole picture. This is especially true for large power plants or those installed on sloped terrain, where the area seen by the person on site can differ from the area where changes are actually occurring.

One option to consider is drone surveying of solar power plants. By using drone surveying, you can capture the entire plant from the air and record the site as orthophotos, three-dimensional data, point clouds, terrain models, and so on, depending on work conditions and processing methods. This makes it easier to get an aerial overview of overall layout, slopes, drainage paths, soil movement, vegetation growth, and the condition of access roads—items that are difficult to grasp just by walking the site. A major advantage is that it can supplement the aspects that site photographs alone cannot provide as decision-making material for operation and maintenance.

However, drone surveying does not necessarily make maintenance easier just by using it. If you capture images with vague objectives, you may only end up accumulating more images and data that cannot be fully utilized in practice. For example, the required shooting methods and deliverables differ depending on whether you want to investigate the causes of reduced power generation, check for poor drainage, monitor changes in developed ground, or use it for mowing plans. To make it useful for maintenance, you must first clarify what you want to determine.

Also, ensuring safety when personnel enter areas near equipment at solar power plants is important. Sloped terrain, mud, ditches obscured by weeds, slope failures, digging by animals, and rainwater inflows mean that walk-through inspections involve hazards and the possibility of oversights. By conducting drone surveys first to identify hazardous spots and priority inspection areas before carrying out on-site inspections, you can more easily improve the efficiency and safety of patrols. This approach is most effective when used before and after on-site inspections, rather than as a complete replacement for them.

What matters in maintenance is not producing a single set of pristine data, but keeping records that inform subsequent decisions. If you establish a baseline condition in the initial survey and then collect data under similar conditions during follow-up inspections or after disasters, it becomes easier to compare changes.

Subsidence, erosion, sediment deposition, surface water retention, vegetation expansion, and deterioration of access roads can be difficult to judge from a single observation. However, comparing them with past records makes it easier to explain the extent and progression of those changes.

To make the most of drone surveying in the operation and maintenance of solar power plants, it is essential to have decision criteria. By clarifying which sites it should be used at, when it should be conducted, and which deliverables are useful for management, it becomes easier to incorporate into inspection and repair plans. This article explains five criteria that operations practitioners should keep in mind when deciding whether to introduce and utilize drone surveying, from a maintenance site perspective.

Judgment Criterion 1: Does the purpose of the on-site verification align with the survey results?

The first criterion for using drone surveying in the operation and maintenance of a solar power plant is whether the purpose of the on-site inspection aligns with the survey deliverables. While drone imaging can capture a large amount of information, producing deliverables that do not match the objective is unlikely to lead to useful on-site decisions. First, it is important to clarify what you want to verify during this maintenance.

For example, when sharing the overall condition of a power plant with stakeholders, an aerial overview image or an orthophoto is effective. You can confirm panel rows, access roads, fences, drainage channels, slopes, and surrounding land use in a single flat map, making it easier to convey the situation to those who have not visited the site. Compared with lining up dozens of on-site photos, it has the advantage of making the plant’s overall spatial relationships easier to grasp.

On the other hand, when you want to check changes in the ground or the flow of rainwater, plan-view images alone may be insufficient. If you need to confirm elevation differences of a developed site, drainage gradients, the shape of slopes, or the extent of sediment accumulation, deliverables that include three-dimensional data or elevation information may be required. If you want to identify places where water tends to pool after rain, having data that lets you verify on-site elevation differences also makes it easier to determine the cause.

Also, if you want to assess weed overgrowth or the impact of trees, the timing of capture and the altitude at which you capture also affect the evaluation. Capturing images during periods of active grass growth makes it easier to understand the extent of vegetation around the panels and along fences. Conversely, if you want to examine the ground surface or the shape of drainage channels, shooting when vegetation is sparse or after mowing may be more appropriate. If the objective differs, the optimal timing for imaging the same power plant will change.

In operations and maintenance, not only abnormalities in power generation equipment but also changes in civil works are important items to check. Solar power plants are often constructed on large sites, and over time the flow of rainwater and the condition of the ground surface can change. Changes such as sediment accumulating in drainage channels, the shoulders of access roads being eroded, small slope failures occurring on embankments, or puddles forming beneath panels are easier to address if detected at an early stage.

However, there are limits to the information that can be obtained through drone surveying. Small component damage, minor wiring anomalies, the condition of connection points, and internal equipment faults can be difficult to assess from aerial surveys alone. These need to be combined with close-up inspections and electrical inspections. Drone surveying is not a universal inspection method; positioning it as a means to understand the overall site, terrain, layout, and changes makes it more practical for use in the field.

To align objectives and deliverables, it is important to organize a checklist of items to verify before imaging. If the maintenance managers, inspection personnel, design staff, and those considering repairs share how the data will be used, it becomes easier to determine the imaging coverage, the required resolution, and the format of the deliverables. It is important to approach the work not simply as photographing the power plant, but as capturing data to support decision-making.

The first step to leveraging drone surveys of solar power plants for operation and maintenance is not creating pretty images. It is clarifying what you struggle with during on-site inspections, what is difficult to explain, and what you want to keep as a record, and then choosing deliverables that match those needs. When objectives and deliverables align, drone surveys become practical documentation that supports on-site decision-making.

Evaluation Criterion 2: Is it necessary to safely grasp the entire power plant?

The second criterion is whether it is necessary to safely assess the entire power plant. In the operation and maintenance of solar power plants, there are many occasions where staff need to walk across a wide site to perform inspections. However, depending on the site conditions, walking inspections can be not only time-consuming but also a significant safety burden. On sloped terrain, in mountainous areas, on soft ground, in places with overgrown vegetation, in mud after rain, or near ditches and embankments, having personnel walk the site itself poses a risk.

Drone surveying is useful as a means to grasp the overall situation of such sites in advance. By capturing images from above, you can identify potentially dangerous areas, locations that should be checked carefully, and walking routes that should be avoided before entering the site. Especially when inspecting after rain, strong winds, typhoons, or heavy rains, it can be safer to view the entire site from above before beginning on-the-ground inspections, rather than walking around the site immediately.

In power plant maintenance, it is not always necessary to inspect every location with the same frequency or level of detail. It is important to focus on priority inspection points—areas prone to change, locations with past faults, places where drainage concentrates, areas near slopes or embankments, and sections of access roads with curves or gradients. By using drone surveying to capture the overall picture, it becomes easier to decide which areas to examine in detail on site.

Also, at power plants, because rows of panels are neatly arranged, it can be difficult to grasp their positional relationships when viewed from the ground. Because similar scenery continues, even if you take photos it can be hard to tell later where exactly they were taken. By combining aerial images or survey results with on-site photographs, it becomes easier to explain the locations of photos and any defect points. This is also useful when preparing maintenance reports or making repair requests.

It is particularly important for safety not to increase the number of people entering the site or the time spent there more than necessary. When a power plant site is large, multiple people may need to walk around for long periods to carry out inspections, but supplementing overall understanding with drone surveying can potentially narrow the scope of on-site work. Of course, there are situations where on-site inspection is necessary for final verification or repair decisions. However, using drone surveying as a preliminary check before entering the site makes it easier to develop an efficient and safe inspection plan.

Drone surveying is also effective for post-disaster inspections. After heavy rain, blockages in drainage channels, slope failures, inflow of sediment, scour of management roads, and abnormalities around fences can occur. In such situations, it is important to assess conditions from the air before entering the site and identify hazardous areas. This provides information to judge whether it is safe to approach the power generation equipment, whether repair vehicles can access the site, and which locations should be prioritized for response.

On the other hand, when using drone surveying for safety assurance, flight safety management itself is also required. Operations must be conducted within reasonable limits after confirming the power plant’s surrounding environment, wind conditions, takeoff and landing locations, nearby buildings and power lines, and the positions of workers. Even inside the power plant, if there are third parties nearby or if the operation could affect adjacent properties, prior checks and coordination are indispensable.

In locations where it is necessary to safely assess an entire power plant, the value of drone surveying increases. In particular, it is an easily applied method as a preliminary step before on-site inspections for extensive grounds, sloped terrain, post-disaster sites, areas overgrown with vegetation, and sites where drainage or slope stability are a concern. Maintenance personnel should judge the need for drone surveying not only by whether walking the site would reveal the issues, but also by whether it is safe to walk and whether they can comprehensively grasp the whole site without overlooking anything.

Assessment Criterion 3: Do you want to continuously monitor changes in terrain and drainage?

The third criterion is whether you want to continuously monitor changes in terrain and drainage. In maintaining a solar power plant, it is important not only to check the appearance of equipment but also to understand the site's topography and water flow. Since the plant is installed outdoors for long periods, its condition changes under the influence of rain, wind, solar radiation, vegetation, animals, nearby construction, and so on. Especially on reclaimed land or slopes, small changes in the ground surface can lead to problems later.

Drainage is a critical issue that is easy to overlook in the operation and maintenance of solar power plants. If rainwater does not flow as intended and accumulates under the solar panels, on access roads, along fences, or at the base of slopes, it can lead to muddy conditions, sediment accumulation, scour (erosion), weed overgrowth, and difficulties in carrying out maintenance work. If drainage channels become clogged or their cross-sectional area is reduced by sediment, rainwater may be diverted to other locations and affect the ground and areas surrounding equipment.

Inspections from the ground can confirm puddles right in front of you and blockages in drainage channels, but it is not easy to grasp, as a whole, where water is coming from and where it is flowing. Recording the entire power plant with aerial drone surveying makes it easier to identify areas where water tends to collect, the connections between drainage channels, the slopes of maintenance roads, and their positional relationship to embankments. Creating data that includes elevation information also provides material for considering whether the terrain is prone to collecting rainwater.

Changes in topography and drainage can be difficult to assess from a single inspection. For example, if part of a maintenance road is slightly eroded, you cannot tell whether that is a temporary condition or whether it is progressing with each rainfall unless you compare it to past conditions. The same applies to small deformations of slopes and the accumulation of sediment. By conducting drone surveys regularly and recording the same areas, it becomes easier to determine whether changes have occurred and to identify their progression.

In maintenance and management, it is important not only to respond after an abnormality occurs but also to detect early changes that could lead to abnormalities. Signs such as sediment gradually accumulating in drainage channels, vegetation obstructing water flow, water tending to remain between rows of panels, or the shoulders of maintenance roads weakening can, if detected early, often be dealt with by minor measures. Drone surveying provides the baseline data to record and compare these changes across a wide area.

Records of topography and drainage are also useful for repair works and improvement proposals. When considering whether it is sufficient to simply clean the drainage channels, whether the outlet needs to be re-evaluated, whether maintenance of access roads is necessary, or whether slope protection should be considered, having materials that show the site's positional relationships makes it easier for stakeholders to discuss; compared with verbal explanations, discussing while viewing aerial imagery and three-dimensional data makes it easier to share the scope and priorities of the issues.

When observing changes in topography and drainage, the timing of photography is also important. Photographing immediately after rain makes it easier to identify locations where water tends to accumulate, but fine features of the ground surface can be obscured by water or mud. Photographing during dry periods makes it easier to inspect the ground surface, but it can be harder to understand how water actually accumulates. For this reason, it can be effective to vary the timing of photography according to the objective. Being able to compare baseline data from normal conditions with post-rain inspection data provides additional information for maintenance and management decisions.

When conducting drone surveys of solar power plants on an ongoing basis, it is important to keep the imaging conditions as consistent as possible. If the capture area, altitude, orientation, timing, and types of deliverables vary greatly each time, comparing with past data becomes difficult. Even if making the conditions exactly the same is difficult, defining basic acquisition parameters according to management objectives will make it easier to confirm changes later.

Changes in topography and drainage affect the long-term stable operation of a power plant. Even if the equipment shows no direct anomalies, deterioration of site conditions can lead to future management burdens and repair risks. When leveraging drone surveying for the operation and maintenance of a solar power plant, it is important not to limit it to mere confirmation of current conditions but to adopt a perspective that reads changes by comparing with past data.

Evaluation Criterion 4: Can it be used for equipment layout and updates to the management ledger?

The fourth criterion is whether the results of drone surveying can be used to update equipment layouts and management ledgers. In the operation and maintenance of solar power plants, it is required not only to understand on-site conditions but also to retain that information as management documentation. Even if there are layout drawings and design documents when the plant is completed, after operations begin, repairs, equipment additions, fence renovations, drainage channel cleaning, changes to mowing areas, and maintenance road repairs can be carried out, causing the on-site conditions and the documents to gradually diverge.

If the management ledger does not match the site, instructions for inspections and repairs tend to become ambiguous. For example, when reporting an abnormality, it can be difficult to explain whether it is near which panel row, along which access road, or on the upstream side of which drainage channel. On-site photos alone can sometimes make it hard to pinpoint the location. If deliverables include aerial imagery and location data from drone surveys, it becomes easier to reflect the site's condition in the ledger and on drawings.

At a solar power plant, having materials that allow an overview of the entire site layout makes maintenance and management work easier to carry out. If panel rows, clusters of mounting racks, access roads, fences, entrances and exits, drainage channels, detention ponds, slopes, areas targeted for mowing, and locations with repair histories can all be confirmed on the same document, it becomes easier to build a shared understanding for on-site responses. The results of drone surveying can be used as such a base map for management.

Especially when a power plant is large or when managing multiple power plants, keeping documentation up to date is important. When the person in charge changes, when requesting an external inspector, when conveying the scope of repair work, or when checking past conditions, having the latest aerial imagery and current site maps makes explanations smoother. This helps shift management away from being something only people familiar with the site can understand and toward management where anyone can easily grasp the condition.

When using drone surveying to update records, it is important not just to save images but to organize the necessary information. Recording the capture date, coverage area, power plant name, purpose of inspection, main changes, locations requiring repair or cleaning, and differences from previous data will make the dataset easier to use later. Even if only images and point clouds remain, if you cannot tell why the data were acquired, their value as maintenance documentation will be diminished.

When checking equipment layouts, drone surveying makes it easier to grasp the current positional relationships. If there are differences between design-stage drawings and on-site conditions, you can identify areas that need correction based on current-condition data. For example, the actual routing of maintenance roads, the location of drainage channels, fence kink points, distances to trees, and open spaces around equipment can be difficult to organize as a whole by simply walking the site. Having aerial records makes it easier to create management documents that closely reflect the current conditions.

However, when using it to update records, you need to clarify the required level of accuracy. Whether the purpose is merely positioning for maintenance management, material for repair design, rough quantity estimation, or explanatory material for stakeholders will affect the required accuracy and the work procedures. If high accuracy is needed, you must consider appropriate control points, positioning methods, imaging plans, and processing methods. Conversely, if it is used for overall understanding or explanatory materials, it may be more practical to prioritize clarity and ease of updating rather than pursuing excessively fine accuracy.

In the field of maintenance and management, balancing accuracy and usability is essential. Even if detailed data is produced, it will not be utilized if the persons responsible cannot view it, share it, or update it. To reflect drone survey results in the management ledger, it is important to organize them in a format that on-site personnel can view and understand, and to link them to drawings, photos, and inspection records as needed.

Whether it can be used to update equipment layouts and management ledgers is an important criterion to prevent drone surveying from being treated as a one-off capture. In maintenance management, the more records accumulate, the more valuable they become. If you can understand the site's latest condition and manage it by linking inspection and repair histories, drone surveying becomes an information foundation that supports the long-term management of power plants.

Evaluation Criterion 5: Is it easy to share inspection records with stakeholders?

The fifth criterion is whether the results of drone surveys can be easily shared with stakeholders as inspection records. The operation and maintenance of solar power plants can involve people in various roles, including power generation companies, management companies, inspection personnel, repair personnel, design personnel, construction personnel, landowners, and relevant agencies. Therefore, conveying what was confirmed on site in an easy-to-understand way has a major impact on the quality of operation and maintenance.

In reports consisting only of on-site photographs, it can be difficult to convey the location and extent. Even if a photo shows the condition of a defect, it may be hard to determine where it is within the overall power plant, how widespread it is, or how it is positioned relative to other equipment. This is especially true at power plants with long runs of similar panel rows, where it becomes difficult to pinpoint the location from photos alone.

When aerial images and current-condition data from drone surveys are available, the explanatory power of inspection records increases. For example, when reporting a blockage in a drainage channel, showing the condition of the blockage with ground-level photos and indicating the location and nearby water flow with aerial images makes it easier for stakeholders to understand the situation. Slope deformations, damage to maintenance roads, anomalies around fences, and the extent of vegetation growth can also be more clearly defined in terms of the scope of required response by combining them with aerial materials.

To create inspection records that are easy to share, the presentation of deliverables is also important. Even if you only provide specialized three-dimensional data, it may not be used if recipients don’t know the viewing environment or how to handle it. Not all stakeholders have the same technical expertise. Therefore, for maintenance reports, combining an image that shows the overall location, documentation indicating key points, on-site photos, and brief explanatory text makes the records easier to use in practice.

Inspection records should also be created with the expectation that they will be reviewed later. Immediately after an inspection, the person in charge may still remember details and can understand notes that are somewhat brief. However, when reviewed months or years later, it can become unclear why a location was photographed, what extent the problem covered, or whether it has been addressed. If drone survey deliverables include organized information such as the date of capture, the purpose of the inspection, and the main findings, they will be easier to use as long-term maintenance records.

When sharing information with stakeholders, it is also important to organize information that informs repair decisions. Simply reporting that an anomaly exists can make it difficult to determine the priority of responses. If you can explain the extent of the anomaly, its impact on nearby equipment, the flow of rainwater, whether work vehicles can access the site, and changes over time, it becomes easier to plan repairs. Drone surveying is a way to improve the quality of inspection records because it can present this surrounding information in an integrated way.

Furthermore, when managing multiple power plants, it is important to standardize the format of records. If shooting methods and reporting formats differ between plants, comparison and handover become difficult. When incorporating drone surveys into maintenance management, it is advisable to determine basic reporting formats such as overall images, records of key areas, organization of change points, and records of response status. If formats are standardized, it becomes easier to compare the condition of each plant and to reduce variability in management quality.

Whether inspection records are easy to share determines whether the results of drone surveys will actually be used. No matter how precise the data collected, if it is not communicated to stakeholders it will not lead to maintenance decisions. Conversely, if the necessary information is organized in an easy-to-understand way, stakeholders who have not visited the site can understand the situation and more easily consider the next steps.

Drone surveying for the operations and maintenance of solar power plants is not only a technology for inspecting the site but also a technology for sharing the site’s condition. A key point for practical use is judging whether the results can be organized in a form that is easy to use for reporting, handovers, repair planning, and records management.

How to proceed when incorporating drone surveying into maintenance and management

When incorporating drone surveying into the operation and maintenance of solar power plants, it is important to first clarify its relationship with existing inspection workflows. Simply adding drone surveying as a separate new task can increase the burden on staff and make it harder to sustain. You should consider where within the tasks you already perform—regular inspections, checks before and after mowing, checks before and after drainage cleaning, emergency checks after disasters, records before and after repair work, and so on—drone surveying will be most effective.

During implementation, it is also important not to try to manage everything at high precision from the outset. First, it is realistic to obtain an aerial image of the entire power plant and, while comparing it with on-site photos and existing drawings, identify situations where it can be used for maintenance and management.

As you confirm benefits such as a clearer understanding of plant layout, easier explanation of mowing areas, simpler sharing of drainage channel conditions, and faster post-disaster inspections, you can expand into three-dimensional data and ongoing comparisons as needed.

In a photography plan, it is necessary to take the characteristics of the power plant into account. The inspection items to be prioritized differ between flat-site and sloped-site power plants. On flat sites, poor drainage and puddles, vegetation overgrowth, and the condition of access roads tend to be important; on sloped sites, slopes, stormwater runoff, soil movement, and erosion of access roads tend to be important. For power plants in mountainous areas or those with many surrounding trees, shadows, fallen branches, and changes in surrounding vegetation should also be checked.

The frequency of imaging should be determined according to the power plant’s risks and management objectives. It is not necessary to conduct drone surveys frequently at every power plant. It is more effective to carry them out according to the purpose—for example, when you want to record the initial condition after installation, to check for changes after heavy rain or typhoons, when there are concerns about drainage or slopes, when vegetation grows rapidly, or when you want to document conditions before and after repairs. Combining regular records with ad hoc inspections as needed makes it easier to match actual management practices.

You should decide early how to manage deliverables. If capture data, processed images, point clouds, 3D models, report materials, on-site photos, and inspection notes are stored separately, locating them later becomes time-consuming. Organize them so that the power plant name, capture date, inspection purpose, type of deliverable, and key findings are clear, and ensure stakeholders can easily access the information they need. You should treat data acquisition and organizing the data into a state usable for operation and maintenance as separate tasks.

Clarifying the division of responsibilities for on-site verification makes it easier to promote the use of drone surveying. If drone surveying is used to grasp overall changes and spatial relationships, and on-site verification is used to check details and the condition of equipment, the weaknesses of each can be offset. By separating abnormalities visible from above from those that can only be detected up close, it becomes easier to achieve both inspection accuracy and efficiency.

When explaining to internal and external stakeholders, it is important to share what drone surveying can and cannot do. It is effective for grasping the overall layout of a power plant, checking terrain and drainage, updating management ledgers, and sharing inspection records, but it is not intended to, by itself, detect internal equipment abnormalities or make detailed electrical judgments. If the role is properly understood, excessive expectations and incorrect use can be avoided.

When incorporating drone surveying into maintenance, it is important not to make it into an overly special task. Rather than using it only when a problem occurs on site, positioning it within routine management as a means to review the entire facility when necessary makes it easier to utilize. In particular, if you continuously record the power plant’s condition and establish a system to check differences from the previous assessment, you can enable maintenance that does not rely too heavily on experience or memory.

Summary: Leveraging Drone Surveying in the Operation and Maintenance of Solar Power Plants

To make drone surveying effective for the operation and maintenance of solar power plants, it is important not simply to photograph from the air but to consider how to link the data to maintenance decision-making. By taking an aerial overview of large sites, assessing terrain and drainage conditions, updating equipment layouts and management ledgers, and ensuring the results can be clearly shared with stakeholders, drone surveying provides practical value.

The first criterion is whether the purpose of the site inspection aligns with the survey deliverables. The required outputs vary depending on whether you want to view the entire power plant, check drainage or terrain, assess vegetation growth, or share the scope of repairs. If you capture data without clarifying the purpose, the data may remain but will be difficult to use for decision-making.

The second is whether it is necessary to safely assess the entire power plant. On large sites, sloped terrain, or post-disaster locations, checking only from the ground can become time-consuming and risky. If you first survey the whole area with drone surveying, it becomes easier to identify hazardous locations and priority inspection points, making it easier to improve the safety and efficiency of on-site work.

The third consideration is whether you want to continuously monitor changes in terrain and drainage. At solar power plants, rainwater flow, clogged drainage channels, sediment movement, slope changes, and damage to access roads can affect long-term maintenance. By performing drone surveys regularly and making it possible to compare with past conditions, you can more readily detect small changes early.

The fourth point is whether it can be used to update equipment layouts and management ledgers. If there is a discrepancy between a power plant’s on-site conditions and the management documents, instructions for inspections and repairs become ambiguous. If the results of drone surveying are reflected in as-built drawings and management ledgers, it becomes easier to share the latest on-site status and aids in personnel handovers and the management of multiple power plants.

The fifth point is whether the inspection records are easy to share with stakeholders. Even when on-site photos alone make it difficult to convey location or extent, combining them with aerial imagery or survey results makes it easier to explain areas of concern and the scope of response. In maintenance management, it is important to accurately communicate what was observed on site to stakeholders and link that to subsequent actions.

Drone surveys of solar power plants are not a replacement for inspection work; it is realistic to use them as basic data to support maintenance and management decisions. If you clarify roles such as overall understanding, comparison of changes, asset register updates, and report sharing, they will be effective when combined with on-site verification and equipment inspections. If you want to streamline maintenance and management of solar power plants going forward, it is best to start by organizing your company’s management issues and confirming which decision criteria they fall under.

If you want to safely inspect a large power plant, visualize changes in terrain and drainage, or keep inspection records easy to understand, it is worth considering a drone surveying system suited to maintenance and management. By continuously recording site conditions and creating an environment in which stakeholders can make decisions based on the same information, it becomes easier to contribute to the long-term stable operation of a solar power plant. When considering concrete ways to leverage drone surveying for maintenance and management, it is important to keep in mind survey deliverables that are easy to handle on site and an operational framework that can be updated without undue burden.