Thermal Imaging & Solar Audits
Radiometric thermal surveys of solar parks, substations, industrial plant and building envelopes – with string-level defect reporting your O&M team can work straight off.
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Heat is where the fault shows first
Almost everything that is about to fail gets warm first. A cracked solar cell, a loose busbar, a bearing running dry, water tracking under a roof membrane – all of them announce themselves thermally weeks or months before anything is visible.
A radiometric thermal camera on a drone reads that heat across an entire asset in a single pass, which is the difference between checking a sample and checking everything.
Solar: the numbers that matter
A 100 MW park in Rajasthan has roughly 200,000 modules. A hand-held thermal audit samples maybe 2% of them and takes a fortnight. A drone audit reads 100% in two days.
What comes back is a module-level map: hotspots, bypass-diode failures, PID-affected strings, junction-box faults, soiling patterns and complete string outages, each pinned to a table and row number your site team can walk to.
In our experience on Indian parks, between 0.4% and 1.8% of modules on a two-year-old installation are underperforming enough to be worth rectifying. On a 100 MW asset the recovered generation from fixing them typically pays for the audit several times over in the first year – which is the argument that gets these programmes approved.
What you get
Radiometric, not colourised video
Every pixel carries a real temperature value, so findings are measured in degrees rather than eyeballed from a false-colour image.
Module-level solar reporting
Faults pinned to table, row and module position, classified by IEC 62446-3 anomaly type and ranked by generation impact.
Substation and switchyard scans
Hot joints, unbalanced phases and failing bushings identified from a safe standoff with the yard live.
Building envelope surveys
Water ingress paths, missing insulation and thermal bridging mapped across a roof or facade in one flight.
ASNT Level II interpretation
Data is read by a certified thermographer, not auto-tagged by software. Reflections and solar loading get ruled out before a finding is raised.
Pre-monsoon and annual cycles
Scheduled audits timed to the Indian maintenance calendar, with year-on-year trend comparison per string.
Deliverables
- Module-level thermal orthomosaic
- Defect table pinned to table / row / module ID
- IEC 62446-3 anomaly classification
- Estimated generation loss per defect class
- Radiometric source files (R-JPEG)
- Prioritised rectification schedule
From enquiry to handover
Timing
Solar scans are flown between 11:00 and 14:00 at above 600 W/m² irradiance – outside that window the data is not diagnostic and we will not fly it.
Baseline
We take module datasheets and the SCADA string map first, so findings can be reported in your naming convention.
Flight
Automated grid at fixed altitude for consistent GSD, radiometric capture throughout.
Analysis
Certified thermographer reviews every anomaly, rules out reflections, and ranks by generation impact.
What it costs
Prices below are indicative for a standard scope in our four base cities and exclude GST. Every project gets a written fixed-price scope before we mobilise - no hourly surprises.
Rooftop / Small Plant
- Full radiometric scan
- Module-level defect table
- Generation loss estimate
- 5 working day report
Utility Scale
- 100% module coverage
- IEC 62446-3 classification
- String-level reporting
- Rectification priority list
- On-site debrief
- Minimum 10 MW
Plant & Substation
- Switchyard and plant thermal
- ASNT Level II report
- Severity-ranked defect register
- Comparison with previous cycle
Thermal Imaging in the field
Thermal Imaging FAQs
Ready to get your project in the air?
Tell us the site, the deliverable and the deadline. We will come back with a written scope, a clearance timeline and a fixed price - usually within one working day.