Solar energy and robotics technology are coming together. But, why?
What’s happening:
- Solar energy company Array Technologies (NASDAQ: ARRY) has made a $3M USD strategic investment into Swap Robotics
The big idea:
- Swap Robotics has designed robots that are capable of laying solar panels completely autonomously
- The robots built by Swap Robotics are able to operate in large solar fields without human supervision and handle thousands of pounds of solar panels
Why it matters:
- Using robotics to lay solar panels could dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to bring a new renewable energy project into full scale operations and could also enable solar fields to be built in more remote locations
- Robotics technology has seeing a boom in funding lately from both Silicon Valley and Wall Street, with Jeff Bezos and OpenAI just recently leading a mega round for Physical Intelligence and publicly traded companies such as Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) unveiling their humanoid robot prototype
By the numbers:
- Swap Robotics previously raised $7M USD in venture capital funding in a seed round
- All of the robots designed by Swap Robotics are 100% electric and run on small batteries
Going deeper:
- Array Technologies has also committed to making two further strategic investments into Swap Robotics upon the completion of specific accomplishments
