When building solar farms in remote locations, driving materials around the often sprawling sites can be time consuming. To reduce the number of trips on a New Mexico solar site, Black & Veatch ran a pilot test of the Honda Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV), a four-wheeled platform that can carry or haul materials and tools to preset locations without an operator.
“The trial that we did exceeded our expectations,” says Paul Skurdahl, senior vice president and solar lead at Black & Veatch. “We were unsure of how useful it would be, but we were able to immediately put it to work in a way that was useful for our site work.”