Ecoppia eyes new markets following Tel Aviv IPO

• Israeli robot photovoltaic panel cleaning business Ecoppia is laying the ground for worldwide growth and increased data capabilities following its recent going public (IPO) on the Tel Aviv stock market.

Ecoppia launched an IPO after securing greater than US$ 82.5 million with a public tender phase at the end of 2020, with capitalists valuing the firm at US$ 300 million. This is on top of a financial investment from US investor CIM Group, which got US$ 40 million of shares in Ecoppia, as well as with US$ 20 countless investment ploughed directly right into the firm.

CEO Jean Scemama told PV Tech in January that the business is readying itself for expansion into "brand-new geographies", and establishing a more intelligent type of data collection that would certainly transform its cleaning robots right into module efficiency experts. It already has upwards of 16GW of solar PV panels in its client portfolio, as well as a considerable existence in India, where it manages 2GW of operational solar and has contracts for 8GW poised for future development.

Last week (25 February), the robot cleaning expert secured its very first contract in Egypt, covering O&M for the BenBan solar park in the southerly city of Aswan, which has an overall ability of 1,650 MWp.

The project will make use of Ecoppia's T4 robotics, which are created for single axis trackers. The autonomous device can utilize important sensing units to independently travel to neighbouring trackers over specialized bridges.

The robotics Ecoppia usage currently accumulate a percentage of information on the power generation plants in its customer portfolio, and they are all managed by a cloud-based photovoltaic panel cleaning solution, something Scemama believes provides the firm a competitive advantage for this details ambition.

" The system is already quite wise," he says, but there is more worth to be located in developing a system that makes a judgement call on the data it collects. As he puts it, the next stage of business' growth is "a data play more than simply robot".

Scemama told PV Technology in January Ecoppia anticipates to be able to provide something to the market in this vein in the following 12-18 months. He did not dismiss acquiring a firm with even more knowledge on information evaluation, either.

" Adding evaluating the information we currently gather from the system and also giving alerts and insight for the site proprietors is the next phase. The more information we're going to have, the much more accurate the forecast will certainly be. We as a result intend on including multiple added sensing units on the site, including drones. Eventually our goal is to recommend to the site owner: 'in this block as well as in this row, in this panel, you have a problem. Our referral is to replace it as well as this is your ROI'. That's a considerable worth we intend on giving our clients."