“Quantitative Energy Laboratory QE-Labs” received a $1.5 million angel round investment from Mr. Liu Xiaosong

On August 17, 2022, the Singapore technology company “Quantified Energy Labs Pte. Ltd (hereinafter referred to as QE-Labs)” announced that it has received a $1.5 million angel round investment from Mr. Liu Xiaosong, a well-known investor. This round of financing will be mainly used to promote the commercialization of QE-Labs’ patented electroluminescence (EL) imaging technology for autonomous drones.

Mr. Liu Xiaosong is both an entrepreneur and an investor. He is the chairman and CEO of A8 New Media Group (00800.HK) and the founding partner of Qingsong Fund, a well-known early-stage investment institution. investment in consumption.

QE-Labs team members (from left to right): Dr. Yan Wang (CEO), Dr. Ji Zhang (Principal Investigator of PV System Design), Dr. Yongsheng Qiu (COO), Dr. Karl Bedrich (CTO), photo by Energy Market Authority of Singapore Provided by EMA

Solar power is the new king of electricity. In its World Energy Outlook 2020, the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted that solar is the cheapest electricity ever produced. In the first quarter of 2022, the cumulative installed capacity of global solar energy has reached 1TW, which is a milestone value. According to conservative estimates by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the total installed solar capacity globally will reach 3TW by 2030.

As the world deploys billions of solar PV modules to replace traditional fossil fuels, the need for regular inspection and maintenance of solar PV modules in the international market, as well as reducing the risks caused by excessive power drops, will increase. However, there is currently no effective solution on the market to directly identify hidden defects in on-site solar PV modules.

Although there are currently solutions for visual and infrared thermal imaging (IR) inspections using dual cameras on UAVs, and they can play a certain role in routine operation and maintenance, such as component-level safety issues (such as “hot spots”, i.e. localized high temperature areas), maintenance issues (such as contamination due to dust buildup, or shading or shading from surrounding structures), and a limited variety of PV module defects (such as broken front cover glass or bypass diode failure), but involving At the cell level, critical internal defects such as cracks, corrosion, voltage-induced degradation (PID), etc., which reduce module power in the medium to long term, are still not detectable by existing thermal imaging (IR) inspections.

Electroluminescence (EL) testing is currently widely used as an essential QA/QC method in the PV module manufacturing process to detect various internal defects. The photovoltaic industry recognizes the urgent need to extend electroluminescence (EL) testing to the power plant site to inspect installed photovoltaic modules. However, on-site EL is usually done manually by the operator, who needs to move a tripod-mounted electroluminescence camera along the PV string in order to take EL images of the modules one by one. With the large-scale use of solar energy around the world, this manual EL inspection solution is tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack, which is obviously unable to meet market demand.

Comparison of drone thermal imaging (left) and drone electroluminescence imaging (right) of a solar power plant. String failures at the component level were observed on both imaging techniques. However, solar cell scratches due to improper installation are only visible in electroluminescence imaging (right).

How can this dilemma be resolved? QE-Labs has developed an autonomous drone electroluminescence imaging solution that enables fast, economical, and accurate identification of defective PV modules, and is revolutionizing PV inspection.

For optimal electroluminescence inspection, QE-Labs’ solutions comprehensively cover hardware and software for front-end data acquisition and back-end data analysis: front-end data acquisition tools include tools for automatic inspection plan creation, flight route planning, drone Software packages and algorithms for flight dynamics and autonomous scanning of PV strings; the backend has specialized software and algorithms to process and analyze a large amount of EL raw data collected and convert it into actionable results for end users. It is worth mentioning that the technology developed by QE-Labs is protected by international patent law.

Comparison of traditional manual EL imaging inspection (left) and QE-Labs’ autonomous drone EL imaging (right): QE-Labs’ drone EL imaging solution is up to 20 times faster and less expensive 10 times lower.

“Electroluminescence (EL) is the gold inspection standard for quality control in PV module manufacturing. With our autonomous drone electroluminescence imaging solution, we bring stringent factory-level quality control to the field, providing a solid foundation for the global solar PV inspection field and Supported by PV asset lifecycle management,” said Dr. Yan Wang, CEO of QE-Labs, “Based on these innovations, our customers can reliably track and identify various types of defects on site based on an accurate geo-calibrated database of the entire PV system. PV modules. It is the most powerful digital solution to support PV asset owners in making smart business decisions.”

It is reported that QE-Labs’ autonomous drone electroluminescence imaging solution has successfully completed the world’s largest EL inspection project of a 60MW floating photovoltaic system operated by Singapore’s Sembcorp Group, and has been verified in the regional market. For global expansion, QE-Labs has also partnered with PVEL, a leading independent testing laboratory, a member of the Kiwa Group, to bring its solutions to the US market. The partnership is based on a data-as-a-service (DaaS) business model enabled by drones, where PVEL will perform front-end on-site inspections and QE-Labs will provide data processing and analysis services. With the angel round funding in place, QE-Labs will optimize its innovative solutions and replicate business models to expand into more key markets such as Europe, Australia, Japan, India and China.

“As the scale of solar deployment expands, the demand for innovative PV asset management is exploding, and the market for PV inspections using drones will grow substantially,” said Mr. Liu Xiaosong, an investor in this round, “We are delighted to invest QE-Labs, because it provides the most advanced UAV electroluminescence imaging inspection solutions on the market; we will fully support the company in addressing the challenges brought about by climate change, and will cooperate with QE on the company’s business model, market entry strategy, etc. -Labs share experience, give support, and work with companies to create a positive impact on society.”