Virginia — US power generation company AES Corp has announced the launch of Maximo, the first AI-enabled robot designed to install solar panels with remarkable efficiency.
Promising to halve both installation time and costs, Maximo is set to revolutionize the solar industry.
Maximo is engineered to collaborate with human teams on the ground, significantly speeding up the deployment of renewable energy projects.
AES expects to use Maximo to help build up to 5 GW of its solar backlog and pipeline over the next three years. (Screenshot)
AES president and CEO, Andres Gluski, emphasized the importance of such innovations, stating, “Maximo is the first proven solar installation robot on the market. We are facing unprecedented increases in demand, driven in large part by the rise of AI and data centers. Innovations like these will be fundamental for accelerating our ability to bring projects online faster and with greater efficiency.”
Maximo’s capabilities include automating the heavy lifting involved in placing and attaching solar modules.
The robot has already successfully installed nearly 10 MW of solar capacity and is projected to reach 100 MW by 2025.
AES aims to leverage Maximo to assist in constructing up to 5 GW of its solar backlog and pipeline over the next three years.
The robot will be deployed in AES’s 2-GW Bellefield solar-plus-storage project in Kern County, California, which is under contract with Amazon.
Maximo’s first utility-scale deployment took place at the Oak Ridge Solar project in Louisiana, which also supports Amazon operations.
In 2021, AES introduced Atlas, another solar installation robot, marking the company’s initial foray into robotic solutions for renewable energy.
Maximo represents a significant advancement from Atlas, incorporating AI to enhance precision and efficiency in solar panel installation.
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