ydqa ep 15

David Young: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome to the Your Drone Questions Answered podcast. I am Drone Launch Academy founder David Young. I'm filling in today for John Dickow, our normal host. I have here with me today Sinuhe Montoya from Drone quote Sinuhe.

Thanks for coming on. Yeah, it's my pleasure, man. Thank you for having me. And the question that we're gonna answer today is, how are drones being used to help the solar install process? And we're gonna dive into a little bit of how drones are also being used to, inspect existing solar panels. So Sinuhe, why don't you give us a little bit of background by yourself, some of your experience in solar and with drones, and give us your, your kind of two minute story here.

Sinuhe Montoya: Okay, thanks man. So, I, I'm, as, uh, David just mentioned, I have been in the residential, solar and roofing industry for the better part of 10 years now. And, uh, you know, five, four or five years into the industry, uh, I realized that I didn't like getting on roofs probably cuz. They're tall and I'm not.

And, , I started using a drone, to facilitate better data acquisition without me getting on the roof. [00:01:00] And it made a world of a difference for me because it allowed me to, gather the data that I needed in a quicker manner and in a safer manner. And it had a real profound impact on my sales.

And I realized, holy smokes, there's, there's, uh, you know, definitely an opportunity here to be more efficient.

David Young: so just for those not familiar with the solar process, like with the before drones, what's the typical process for going out on a residential commercial property and figuring out how to install solar panels on top of it?

Sinuhe Montoya: So a, a good salesperson is gonna want to understand what's taking place on the roof, you know, the measurements of physical obstructions or shade, obstructions, or condition of the roof and how far, you know, an obstruction may be from a certain feature of the roof where you can fit a panel or not.

And, you know, obstruction,

David Young: roof stuff sticking out of the roof, right? Like vents and things like that.

Sinuhe Montoya: Correct, like a vent, a chimney a feature of the house, um, or vent. Yeah. And okay. You'll want to climb the roof and, you know, walk the roof and lay out your measuring tape, which is a real pain in the butt if it's, you know, a long span [00:02:00] you're trying to measure.

Um, and then on the after post-sales, there's also a site survey that takes place where it's a more in-depth measurement. Um, but a good salesperson would've gathered all that information on the front end, and that's where there was a lot of friction that I was finding.

David Young: Gotcha. And I know some solar companies, or I've heard of 'em, at least you'll use like satellite imagery.

But what's, I guess, what's the advantage of using drones over satellite,

Sinuhe Montoya: satellite imagery, unless you're paying for the most updated, imagery, you know, is it gonna be outdated? And even the paid imagery, uh, there's a company called Near Map, it's rather expensive and you still don't have the level of, uh, detail that you're gonna get from a drone.

Obviously flying 50 feet above the roof. So it's a, it's a matter of, uh, definition and dated imagery if it's the former.

David Young: Gotcha. So like, walk us through the process once you started using drones, what's the process of getting the data that you need? Are you just taking a bunch of pictures, like how do you actually get those measurements of a roof and how do you collect the information you need?

Is it just normally like, you just go up and snap pictures or is there more to it than that?

Sinuhe Montoya: So it's a little bit more involved. Yes, you're taking pictures, but it's a process that you're [00:03:00] following. Uh, because if you just simply take pictures, you're not gonna gather the data you need.

We set out a scale or we use features in the property as a scale to, import the imagery, imagery into. Uh, like a Aurora software, if you will, to design a system. Uh, and then we turn all the images into an ortho map, as I'm sure you're aware of what that is. Uh, and that allows us to zoom in.

Well,

David Young: people, some people might not be. So, explain real quick, what is an ortho map or an ortho mosaic? So an ortho

Sinuhe Montoya: mosaic, a map is, uh, the sum of say, 30 pictures that the software stitches together into one. You're able to get a very, you know, in depth, look at that roof or whatever it is, you're using that ortho map for So the drone pilot follows the, the protocols to gather the imagery for the ortho map. And then, you know, we want features, , in the images as well. So we'll take a, a side view of a property if there's a tall tree. Uh, and then with the ortho map we could see how tall the.

Or the distance from the tree to the house or where the panels are landing. Mm-hmm. And then we're able to, you know, import that data into the [00:04:00] software I mentioned earlier, Aurora, and it tells you a very good idea of what the shade obstructions are gonna be like. Uh, and then also square footage of a roof.

David Young: I'm assuming shade because again, I don't, I don't know a ton about solar, but I'm assuming shade obstructions is something's blocking the Sun Solar panel can't pick up the energy from the sun and they're not gonna be as efficient.

Sinuhe Montoya: Correct. And you want to be able to account for that. You want to be able to define or quantify what effect that shade is gonna have on the output of electricity.

If you have a Okay. A nice, clear, open roof that has no shade. It'll produce more than, you know, even a well oriented, uh, position with that has, you know, 30% shade.

David Young: Gotcha. So you can take that. images and orthomosaic image, uh, from the drone that you captured, and you're, you can load that straight into your, like, design software that you use.

It like, takes it all and uses it. Oh

Sinuhe Montoya: yeah. It's wonderful, uh, because you're able to, if you go from the images and, and if you could imagine, uh, you know, transforming the image of a real image into the software, It's awesome how it just goes from, you have this picture to now you have this computerized image of the property with the trees and the chimney [00:05:00] and the vents and everything exactly where they should be, because you're able to get this kind of detail that you wouldn't otherwise get from satellite imagery.

David Young: So kind of creating like a virtual version of the property into this design software. And then I'm assuming this, I don't know much about design software, so I'm assuming. Is that stuff that will like, calculate the angles of the sun and how much energy it's gonna be able to get and all that fun stuff?

That's

Sinuhe Montoya: exactly what it does. Yep. Yep. No, that's exactly what it does. And it's nice because you know that tree that's 50 feet tall nearby the house in the summer months, you may not think that that it's gonna cause. There to be a lot of shade, but in the winter months when the sun is lower in the horizon, it'll definitely have a different impact or a higher impact on that roof or those panels.

And that's where the drone comes in real handy because if it's a two story difficult to access roof, you're not going to get this side profile image by doing, um, a walk around on the roof. There's tools that you could use that are actually really accurate, but most people don't have these tools.

It's called the Sun Eye. Uh, and it, you, it's a got a fisheye lens. You take a picture on the roof, so you have to get on the roof and it gives you [00:06:00] an idea of where the sun's gonna be. But if you don't have that tool and you're not getting on the roof, then, then drone is literally the next best thing.

David Young: Yeah, that's awesome.

Cool. The less time you spend on a roof, safer things get and Gonna see how that would definitely be helpful.

Sinuhe Montoya: Anybody that's, you know, working out in the field with these drones, you're, you're able to get a good look at the rest of the neighborhood and it.

It shows you available opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise see from the ground. So from a sales perspective, it's super valuable for that as well.

David Young: Now, what opportunities, like when you say you'll see other opportunities, what would that look like?

Sinuhe Montoya: So you would see all the roofs that don't have solar.

Sometimes you spot a roof and you're like, oh, that's a great roof. It doesn't have solar, but the solar's actually on the backside of the house. And with the drone, you're able to see that. But beyond that, if you do like an ortho of the neighborhood, which we do, we could see which roofs, need, you know, TLC or need to be replaced, which roofs are great opportunity for, for solar to be put on.

And you reach out to the homeowner with that understanding ahead of time.

David Young: Gotcha. You can say, oh, hey, I was at the neighbor's house doing this solar project and [00:07:00] noticed your roof. What points in the right direction, or I guess what, what makes a roof good for solar? Yeah, it'd be very

Sinuhe Montoya: similar to you have a great roof.

That'd be make for an efficient system and an efficient system costs less and makes for a better return on investment.

David Young: Gotcha. and this is just an aside here. This is not necessarily with drones, but I had some guys come out here they were solar guys, like, can we look at your roof?

Whatever. I said, yeah, sure. They were nice. So they were looking around and they're like, yeah, we'll follow up with you. Uh, we'll come out and we'll like talk to you . They kind of got my utility bills and all that stuff and, um, They were gonna wanted to set up a time to come back and meet with me.

And like the first time, like I ended up, something had came up. Came up, so I felt bad, but I like kind of had to cancel slash reschedule on 'em once or twice. But I was like genuinely interested in actually meeting with them. But then they just never followed up after that. They just like let it go. And I was like, oh, if they would've followed up with me a couple more times or like, you know, continued to be like, oh hey, sorry, that and time to work.

Do you wanna do this time? Like I would've met with them. And I might have bought something, but they just, they just dropped it. I was genuinely like, oh, I wish those guys [00:08:00] would've, I mean, I, I could have made the effort, but I'm just like,

Sinuhe Montoya: I mean, they should, you know, want to want or bad enough to follow up with you.

sorry

David Young: that that has nothing to do with it, but just saying if you're in the business of like selling stuff to people, that is actually helpful. Uh, don't be afraid to follow up with them some more. So.

Sinuhe Montoya: Well, I'll tell you what, we have a, a high success rate in offering the service of the survey to the homeowners before we quote anything and people pay for that.

We charge it for the survey because there's no signed agreement. So we have to have some kind of commitment and you know, money obviously works. and it is a great tool to help close the business. It works really well. Yeah, the drones that is.

David Young: All right, so let's, uh, alright, lock back in on solar. So let's do in, I know this isn't necessarily your kind of specialty, but you know, definitely more about it than I do.

Or maybe the average person. When you are going to inspect a solar panel, let's say it's a solar farm, or you're, you want to see how the panels on your roof are doing, like, let's say they've been up there for a while. Uh, what equipment do you need and what do they look for when [00:09:00] you're doing like solar panel inspections?

Sinuhe Montoya: So for solar panel inspections, the thing that you're gonna wanna look for, Is with thermal equipment is, um, uh, dark spots in the panels that'll tell you if a cell is bad or if the whole panel is bad. the thing, now, this is my speculation, because we don't do large scale inspections of farms, uh, with a farm, it's, it would be very, very efficient because it's gonna be a lot quicker than somebody on the ground, obviously.

Um, so mm-hmm. And, and it'll stand out. the, anomalies will stand out a lot better.

David Young: So there's just temperature differences basically on the panels, and that's when it's gonna show you what's good or bad,

Sinuhe Montoya: correct?

Correct. Um, now the thing is, uh, on residential, uh, the cost of the equipment, the thermal equipment versus the cost of, you know, paying somebody to do the survey, they're not congruent with one another. So a residential, uh, owner of a pro, a system would probably not. Want to pay for that survey? Postin installation because, uh, you have monitoring on [00:10:00] your mobile device or on your computer. Interesting. Yeah. That tells you what's going on with the system. Right. Gotcha. So same with a commercial system, you would have monitoring, but there's just so many more panels. Um, and it's worth, I believe, to get the, the thermal inspections on the residential side.

It would, uh, not necessarily return a. Viable ROI for somebody.

David Young: Gotcha. Gotcha. Interesting. Cool. anything else before we go that you wanna close out with that would be helpful for people who are just curious about solar and how that intersects with drones?

Sinuhe Montoya: if you are curious about, you know, how we would, uh, work with you in your area, you can go, uh, check us out@dronequote.com.

Um, if you are somebody like David who potentially could be a solar customer, could also go over to drone quote.com. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you, to your audience.

David Young: Cool. Thanks for coming on here and, giving us some info on solar and drones.

You got it. It's

Sinuhe Montoya: been my pleasure.