Combining solar and robots could never be bad (Wall-E!), but at the Solar Power International convention it wasn’t about solar-powered robots as much as it was robotics that can help with the manufacturing and production of solar gear. There were at least four booths touting robotics for stacking solar panels, assembling products and inspecting systems.
We took this short 15-second video of the solar robotic solution from Adept. In the video the Adept Quattro quickly picks up and places the solar products into exact locations, which the company says maximizes productivity and minimizes breakage.
That’s what I have always said. Use solar powered robots to do agriculture, biomass energy crops, forestry, road construction, and so forth. These are activities done in daylight anyway. The battery demands would be minimal assuming work usually stops in the rain, snow, and fog.
For most indoor industrial use, solar power would have no particular advantage over any other power source.