Solar farms lose 2–8.3% of annual production to soiling, yet the industry still relies on approaches that are blind, reactive and wasteful.
Drive to site, visually check panels. Infrequent, expensive, and unable to cover every row.
$500–$2,000 per visitClean every few months regardless of soiling reality. Over-clean or under-clean — always wasteful.
Unoptimised budgetPyranometers need installation, calibration, and only measure one point across the whole farm.
$5,000–$20,000 / siteBy the time SCADA shows a drop, revenue is already gone. Reactive, not predictive.
Up to 30% loss in heavy eventsThree automated steps replace what previously required site visits, specialist hardware, and weeks of manual analysis.
Multi-spectral imagery of your farms acquired every 5–7 days via ESA Sentinel-2 (standard) or Planet SkySat for daily premium monitoring. No site visits, no hardware required.
ML models analyse panel reflectance, cross-referencing solar irradiance data, weather events, and aerosol readings to isolate soiling from cloud cover, shading, or degradation.
Automated alerts ranked by ROI: which farms need cleaning now, estimated revenue loss per week, cleaning cost vs. savings — with one-click PDF export for asset owners.
Annual production lost to soiling (Wood Mackenzie)
Global industry cost of soiling annually
US installed solar capacity (2025)
US utility-scale farms — your addressable market
Solar O&M market CAGR through 2029
Direct competitors in satellite soiling detection (as of 2026)
SkySense is purpose-built for solar O&M — every feature exists to cut losses and optimise cleaning spend.
Full spatial soiling map of every row — not a single sensor point. See exactly where soiling is heaviest across your entire site.
Automated 5–7 day satellite revisit. Catch rapid soiling events like dust storms within days, not months.
Revenue loss, cleaning cost, and payback period per farm — built in. Know your ROI before dispatching a crew.
Time-series charts for seasonal soiling patterns, crop cycles, dust storms. Report historical performance directly to asset owners.
Portfolio view sorted by urgency and ROI. Know which site to clean first across dozens of farms — without manual analysis.
Real-time notifications when soiling thresholds are crossed. Act immediately — no login required to receive actionable alerts.
Pure SaaS — register your farm coordinates and we begin live analysis within 48 hours. No installation, no maintenance.
Connects to kWh Analytics, AlsoEnergy, and SCADA systems via API or webhook. SkySense sits alongside your existing tooling.
Based on 200,000 MWh/yr @ $40/MWh. Soiling loss data per Wood Mackenzie 2025.
| Cost Category | Without SkySense | With SkySense |
|---|---|---|
| Manual inspections / yr | $6,000 | $0 |
| Cleaning cycles / yr | 4 × $5K = $20,000 | 3 × $5K = $15,000 |
| Soiling production loss | 5% = $400,000 | 2% = $160,000 |
| SkySense subscription | — | $18,000 |
| Total Annual Cost | $426,000 | $193,000 |
Annual savings per 100 MW farm
Why satellite-native soiling detection delivers what other approaches simply cannot.
| Capability | SkySense | Soiling Sensors | Drone Inspection | General Monitoring | Calendar Cleaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Farm-wide spatial coverage | ✓ Full | ✗ Point only | ~ Periodic | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Continuous monitoring | ✓ Weekly | ~ Continuous | ✗ Quarterly | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| No hardware installation | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ~ Crew needed | ~ Some HW | ✓ Yes |
| Cleaning ROI recommendation | ✓ Built-in | ✗ No | ✗ No | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Proactive (pre-loss alert) | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial | ✗ Reactive | ✗ Reactive | ✗ No |
| Typical cost per site / yr | $6–24K | $5–20K + maint | $100–300/MW | $1–5K/MW | Variable |
We focus first on regions with the highest soiling intensity, where SkySense delivers its greatest return in the shortest time.
Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada
Desert dust and low annual rainfall make soiling the #1 O&M variable. Soiling events compound quickly between rain cycles.
Agricultural dust belt
Agricultural dust, seasonal pollen, and airborne pesticides cause heavy soiling during crop cycles — highly variable farm-to-farm.
Arid dust-storm country
High-wind, arid conditions drive dust-storm soiling events that can reach critical levels within hours of a storm passing.
Saudi Arabia, UAE
Extreme sand exposure produces some of the world's highest soiling ratios. Massive utility-scale capacity under rapid expansion.
Monsoon + heavy dust seasons
Massive utility-scale solar capacity with under-optimised O&M. Monsoon transition seasons create extreme soiling variability.
Mining dust, extreme irradiance
High-value farms with severe soiling variability driven by mining activity. Extreme irradiance makes every soiling percentage costly.
Start with a free 3-month pilot. No commitment. Live analysis of your farms within 48 hours of sign-up.
1–3 sites · Up to 20 MW each
4–10 sites · 20–200 MW each
11–30 sites · Large portfolios
No commitment required. Live satellite analysis of your sites within 48 hours of sign-up. Enterprise pricing (30+ sites) available — contact us.
SkySense is the only platform built from the ground up for satellite-based soiling detection. Here's what that means for your portfolio.
Request a DemoBuilt from the ground up on satellite analytics — not adapted from general monitoring. Multi-source data fusion (ESA, Planet, NASA, weather APIs) for higher accuracy.
We solve one problem extremely well. Our models distinguish soiling from shading, degradation, and cloud interference — something general platforms cannot do.
Every alert includes a cleaning ROI calculation, production loss estimate, and priority ranking. We don't just show you data — we tell you what to do with it.
Connects via API or webhook to kWh Analytics, AlsoEnergy, Locus Energy, and custom SCADA systems. SkySense sits alongside your existing tooling, not instead of it.
As of 2026, no direct competitor exists for satellite-based soiling detection. Customers adopting SkySense today gain a data and process advantage that compounds over time.
The same platform works for US Southwest, Middle East, India, and Chile. Launch in your highest-soiling regions and expand internationally with zero architecture changes.
SkySense fuses data from the world's best earth observation satellites with AI trained specifically on solar panel soiling signatures.
Standard tier uses ESA Sentinel-2 (free, 10 m resolution, 5-day revisit). Premium tier uses Planet SkySat (50 cm resolution, daily). Maxar WorldView available for custom engagements.
Proprietary models trained to isolate soiling signal from atmospheric interference, cloud cover, shading, and panel degradation — eliminating false positives that plague general-purpose analysis.
Irradiance data, aerosol optical depth from NASA MERRA-2, weather event correlation, and historical soiling baselines are all fused to produce confidence-scored soiling estimates per farm zone.
All farm coordinate and production data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Hosted on AWS with SOC 2 Type II compliance. Private-cloud deployment available for enterprise customers.
Live satellite analysis of your sites within 48 hours. No hardware. Pilot customers average $233K in annual savings per 100 MW.
Request a Demo sales@datalux.com