For asset owners, O&M and EPCs

Drone Solar Panel Inspection

Drone inspections from $175 near you

Diagonal rows of photovoltaic panels seen from directly above
Overhead view of a warehouse roof covered in solar panels
Rows of solar panels across a field, seen from above
Diagonal rows of solar panels in a field, seen from the air
What do you need?
Where's the property?

Free to post · Usually a reply the same day

219 inspection pilots listed · Pay the pilot directly, no commission

Independent FAA Part 107 pilots who cover your area quote and fly the job.

Free to post

Two minutes, no card, no commitment.

Pay the pilot directly

No commission or markup on their price.

FAA Part 107 pilots

The license all paid drone work requires.

Usually a reply the same day

From a pilot, or from our team if no pilot has answered.

How it works

Three steps, and the first one is free

  1. Describe the job

    The questions adapt to the work: area for a mapping job, access and asset for an inspection.

  2. A pilot near you sends a price

    Pilots whose service area and services match are emailed. Usually a reply the same day, from a pilot or from our team.

  3. Book them and pay them directly

    Check their certificate, kit and sample work, then pay the pilot. SkyLog takes no cut and adds no markup.

What to know before you book

Radiometric or not — the one spec that matters

A standard thermal camera produces a picture where colour means relative temperature within that frame. A radiometric sensor records an actual temperature value for every pixel, which is what lets a report say a module is running eighteen degrees above its neighbours rather than that it looks brighter. If anyone is going to make a warranty claim or trend the array year on year, the data needs to be radiometric, and you should say so in the post rather than discovering the difference when the report arrives. Not every pilot with a thermal camera carries a radiometric one, so it changes who can quote.

Conditions decide whether the flight is worth flying

Thermal contrast depends on the array actually working hard. The usual guidance is at least 500-600 W/m² of irradiance, clear skies, light wind and a scan around the middle of the day — fly it under cloud or early in the morning and the faults simply do not show, because nothing has heated up enough to differ from anything else. That makes solar scanning weather-dependent in a way most drone work is not, so build a reschedule into the plan and treat a pilot who raises conditions unprompted as a good sign rather than an awkward one.

When to fly, and how often

Three moments earn a scan: at commissioning, to establish a baseline and catch installation damage while someone else is still liable; annually, to track degradation and find new faults while they are still small; and after any hail, storm or major maintenance. An annual cycle also gives you a comparable series, which is worth more than any single scan — the useful question is rarely how hot a module is, but whether it is hotter than it was last year.

What this settles

  • Cracked cells, bypassed diodes, hot spots and whole dead strings across an array in a single pass.
  • A baseline at commissioning, which catches installation damage while someone else is still liable.
  • A comparable annual series — the useful question is rarely how hot a module is, but whether it is hotter than last year.
  • Post-event assessment after hail, storm or major maintenance.

What it does not

  • Work under cloud or early in the morning. Below roughly 500-600 W/m² of irradiance nothing has heated enough to differ from anything else.
  • Support a warranty claim from non-radiometric imagery. A thermal picture shows relative warmth; only radiometric data carries a temperature per pixel.
  • Diagnose the electrical cause. It localises the fault; someone still has to open the combiner.
  • Hold to a fixed date reliably. This is weather-dependent work — build a reschedule into the plan.

Not every pilot with a thermal camera carries a radiometric one, so asking for it changes who can quote. Say so in the post rather than discovering the difference when the report arrives.

Why post it on SkyLog

Faults you cannot see

A module running hot is failing in a way visual inspection misses entirely. Thermal imaging separates hot spots, bypass-diode failures, cracked cells and whole dead strings by their heat signature and their pattern across the array.

Whole-array coverage

A flight covers in an hour what a ground crew covers in a day, and it covers it evenly. That matters for comparison: the value of a scan is knowing which 40 modules of 8,000 to send someone to, not confirming the array exists.

A report, not a photo dump

What you want back is a per-module fault list keyed to row and position, with the thermal frames as evidence. Ask for that explicitly when you post — the deliverable format varies more between pilots than the flying does.

Free to post

Posting and receiving quotes costs nothing, and SkyLog takes no commission and adds no markup. You pay the pilot you hire, at the price the two of you agree.

Inspection pilots with published profiles

Real published profiles. Open any one to see credentials, kit, service area and sample work before you post.

Drone inspection pilots by state

Before you post

How large an array can be scanned in one visit?

Site size, battery swaps and airspace all decide it, so ask the pilot to state the coverage they can complete in a day for your layout. Large utility-scale sites are routinely flown over several days rather than one.

What does a thermal scan not tell you?

It finds modules behaving abnormally; it does not diagnose why. Soiling, shading, a wiring fault and a failing cell can present similarly, so a scan narrows where to send a technician rather than replacing one.

Do we need to shut the plant down?

No — the opposite. The array needs to be generating for faults to show thermally, so scans are flown while the plant is running under good irradiance.

What deliverables should we ask for?

A fault list keyed to row and module position, the radiometric thermal imagery, an overview orthomosaic for context, and the flight conditions on the day. That last one is what makes this year's scan comparable with next year's.

Is an FAA authorisation needed?

Only if the site sits in controlled airspace, which many rural solar farms do not. Where it applies it has a lead time, so give the pilot the site address when you post rather than at scheduling.

From a job poster

The jobs nobody else would quote

“I was not expecting to have a response so quickly after calling countless different companies.”
Jared OlroydOwner, Specialty Cleaning Agents
Quote in under 2 hours

Post your array free

Say the array size, the location and whether you need radiometric data, and let inspection pilots carrying thermal payloads quote it. No commission, no obligation to hire.

Overhead view of tiled rooftops in a dense town at golden hour