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Roboter oder Mensch?

Solar farm inspection

Manual inspection (handheld thermal, walking rows) vs Drone thermography

Modellschätzungen von Whirrwork, keine Fakten. Methodik · Trefferbilanz

Mensch · Pro Jahr500.000 $Manual inspection
Roboter · Pro Jahr238.750 $Drone thermography
Amortisationimmediate
Jahr der KostenwendebereitsBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Vereinigte Staaten · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

Mit eigenen Zahlen rechnen

Change anything. Results update as you type and stay in your browser; nothing is stored or sent. Works offline after your first visit.

Arbeitsmenge
Annahme

MW of plant inspected per year.

Annahme

Hours per day.

Annahme

Days per month.

Annahme

Months per year.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 47-4011.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Preise
Abgeleitet AeroDeploy (drone inspection company)

Midpoint of $0.008-$0.012 per watt for manual inspection = $10,000 per MW (drone company's figures).

Abgeleitet AeroDeploy (drone inspection company)

Midpoint of $0.003-$0.006 per watt for drone inspection = $4,500 per MW (same source). A French operator publishes €150-€400 per MWp, far lower.

Roboter
Annahme

Share needing a person on site anyway (string-level electrical tests).

Annahme

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Finanzen
Annahme

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Annahme

Years in the NPV comparison.

Annahme

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Annahme

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Annahme

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Ergebnisse

OptionPro MonatPro JahrPer unit (MW)EinmalkostenAmortisationBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Mensch Manual inspection Vergleichsbasis 41.667 $500.000 $10.000 $— — — —
Roboter Drone thermography 19.896 $238.750 $4.775 $— immediate — 1.142.327 $

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Drone thermography5-year NPV vs baseline: Drone thermographyWorkloadlow value: 5 → 114.233 $high value: 500 → 11.423.266 $Drone thermographylow value: 300 → 1.989.695 $high value: 6000 → 839.695 $Manual inspectionlow value: 8000 → 732.282 $high value: 12000 → 1.552.371 $Work that stays humanlow value: 0 → 1.202.449 $high value: 0.2 → 961.959 $Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 1.229.813 $high value: 0.12 → 1.038.545 $Wage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 1.110.142 $high value: 0.0636 → 1.175.745 $1.142.327 $0low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/solar-farm-inspection/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Modellschätzungen von Whirrwork, keine Fakten.

ChartPersonalkosten pro Einheit (Basis), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Basis), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Roboter: schneller Fortschritt), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Roboter: langsamer Fortschritt). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/solar-farm-inspection/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $2.500 $5.000 $7.500 $10.000 $2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / MWscenario rangePersonalkosten pro Einheit (Basis)Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Basis)Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Robote…Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Robote…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/solar-farm-inspection/). Modelled est…

Jahr der Kostenwende: bereits

What the spreadsheet misses

Sicherheit
Less walking among live DC strings in the heat.
Qualität
Full-coverage thermal maps to IEC 62446-3 are hard to match on foot.
Flexibilität
Technicians fix connectors as they go.
Edge cases
Irradiance has to be high enough for useful thermal images: weather dictates the schedule.
Customer experience
Asset owners get comparable reports year on year.
Jobs and redeployment
O&M crews spend more time fixing, less finding.
Regulierung
Drone rules near substations and airports.

Siehe auch

Quellen auf dieser Seite

Hinweise und Quellen sind auf Englisch; maßgeblich ist die englische Fassung.

  1. Drone inspection cost vs traditional methods: tower climb $800-$1,500 vs drone $350-$600; roof ladder $300-$800 vs drone $150-$400; solar manual $0.008-$0.012/W vs drone $0.003-$0.006/W AeroDeploy (drone inspection company), 2026 · vendor
  2. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  3. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  4. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  5. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  6. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  7. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  8. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  9. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  10. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  11. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  12. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013