Drone Solar Panel Cleaning Delivers Measurable Generation Improvement at Hendra Solar Farm

Horizon Agri Ltd has completed a drone-based solar panel cleaning trial at Hendra Solar Farm in Cornwall, producing a measurable improvement in generation from the cleaned section of the site.

The trial was designed to assess whether non-contact drone cleaning could deliver a measurable performance benefit under real operating conditions.

One inverter section was cleaned using the DJI Agras T50, while two neighbouring inverter sections were left untreated to act as controls. Generation data was then compared before and after cleaning.

The cleaned inverter showed a 3.8% improvement in normalised generation compared with the untreated controls.

Importantly, the panels were only lightly soiled before cleaning, showing that even relatively modest surface contamination can have a measurable effect on output.

The cleaning was completed using a non-contact drone process with no requirement for personnel to work directly on the panels and with no disruption to normal site operations.

The project also demonstrated the value of using site generation data to measure cleaning performance rather than relying solely on visual inspection.

A representative from Hendra Holiday park commented:

“Seamus and Horizon Agri were great to work with; the drone cleaning was carried out efficiently with no disruption to site operations. Our generation data afterwards showed a clear, measurable improvement over the untreated arrays and has given us solid evidence to base future cleaning decisions on.”

For Horizon Agri, the trial provides real-world evidence that drone-based solar cleaning can deliver measurable performance improvements while offering a practical method of treating larger solar installations.

The full Hendra Solar Farm case study includes the methodology, inverter comparison and generation results.

Read the full case study here:

Read the full case study here