Volateq

Volateq is a German spin-off of the DLR Institute of Solar Research. It builds software for automated drone inspection of utility-scale solar plants. Its two main products work together. Solarinspektor analyses drone imagery and produces IEC-compliant reports that include fault maps, soiling analysis and maintenance recommendations. Volafly plans and runs autonomous flights on DJI drone controllers, and the vendor says it can cover up to 70 MWp per day. The vendor says it serves plants from about 1 MWp to more than 500 MWp. Volateq also supports concentrating solar power (CSP) plants, which most competitors do not. At parabolic trough plants it runs weekly inspections of ball joints, using RTK positioning to tie each image to a component in the plant's digital twin. One reported case took about an hour of flight and another hour of processing for a full field scan. Results are delivered on a web platform as a prioritised list of anomalies. Repeat flyovers let operators track degradation over time and plan maintenance in advance. Volateq suits solar asset owners, O&M providers and drone operators. The workflow is built around off-the-shelf DJI hardware such as the Mavic 3 Thermal. The named integration partner is Amperecloud, a solar asset management platform. Pricing is not published, and buyers must contact sales for a quote or demo. The main limitations are that it is a small, seed-stage company with no published pricing or security documentation, and it covers only solar plants.