Skilancer Solar launches waterless cleaning robots for home solar panels

Cleantech startup Skilancer Solar said on Tuesday that it has launched an autonomous waterless robot to clean small-scale solar power plants installed on residential rooftops.

The company plans to capture the 4,400 MW residential solar energy production market, which is expected to touch 8,500 MW by the end of 2020, as per a statement. 

The company expects to see a 20% increase in revenue on the back of the new product for the financial year 2020-2021, co-founder Manish Das told TechCircle.

In three months, the company aims to market the product in Haryana, Delhi and Gujarat, and subsequently expand its supply chain, the statement said.

“With the rise in water-related problems, water scarcity being one of them, the need for an efficient cleaning technology is critical to not only save water but also for promoting the adoption of alternative energy usage in the country… most products in the market today are only for utility-scale solar plants and the residential market is still untapped,” it added.

Founded in 2017 by engineering graduates Das and Neeraj Kumar, Skilancer Solar is an IIM Lucknow incubated startup. Kumar, also the technology director of the company, has worked in the solar energy sector for three years, while business director Das is an instrumentation engineer with over 10 years of experience.

The artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled, self-powered robot is the Noida-based startup’s second product offering. It also sells waterless robots to clean large scale industrial solar plants. 

“With the solar boom, people have shown aggressiveness to install small scale solar power plants on their residential roofs, but the irony is that there is a lack of awareness on keeping them clean which also affects efficiency. The lockdown has pushed us towards automating manual processes,” Das said.

Skilancer Solar’s autonomous robots have been deployed at companies such as Tata, Adani, Hindustan Petroleum and Shree Cement.

“Till June 2020, we had an order book that is more than the revenue we generated in the financial year 2019-20. We expect to grow 1093% from our last financial year. The company's financials are already breaking even,” Das told TechCircle.

The company reported a revenue of Rs 15.6 lakh for the financial year ended March 2019. Its net loss ballooned to Rs 10.8 lakh, compared to Rs 1.42 lakh a year earlier. It is yet to file financials for the period ended March 2020. 

The firm last raised capital in January, when early stage accelerator platform Venture Catalysts backed the firm in a seed funding round. Venture capital firm Alfa Ventures also infused capital in the company seven months before that.