The companies racing to build large solar farms across the United States are facing a growing problem: Not enough workers.
On Tuesday, AES Corporation, one of the country’s biggest renewable energy companies, introduced a first-of-its-kind robot that can lug around and install the thousands of heavy panels that typically make up a large solar array.
AES said its robot, nicknamed Maximo, would ultimately be able to install solar panels twice as fast as humans can and at half the cost.
After months of testing, AES will put Maximo to work in the California desert later this year to help install panels at the largest solar-plus-battery project under construction, meant to power Amazon data centers.
If all goes well, the company aims to build hundreds of similar A.I.-powered robots.
Persons:
Maximo
Organizations:
AES Corporation, AES
Locations:
United States, California