US company to receive $4.9m from ARENA for solar installation robot trial

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced that Boston-based robotics company Luminous has been selected to receive $4.9 million in funding as the first recipient of ARENA’s $100 million Solar ScaleUp Challenge, which sought to supercharge innovation and crowdsource ideas from around the world on how to reduce the cost of large-scale solar.

Luminous’s project will introduce and demonstrate its LUMI robot, an AI-powered pick-and-place technology designed to streamline utility-scale solar construction. LUMI addresses one of the industry’s most labour-intensive tasks: panel installation. LUMI autonomously places solar modules onto racking structures, allowing onsite workers to complete the final securing process, reducing manual labour and improving installation speed, safety and cost-efficiency.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller said that reducing operation and maintenance costs in deployment of large-scale solar is a critical lever in achieving ARENA’s ultra-low-cost solar vision.

“ARENA has set an ambitious goal to reduce the installed cost of solar to 30 cents per watt and bring the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) below $20 per MWh. These are important targets, because at this cost solar will form the foundation for Australia’s renewable energy future,” he said. “To achieve net zero, Australia will need immense amounts of solar power at ultra-low cost. We’ve already proven our ability to manufacture advanced technologies. It’s now time to apply that capability to solar PV, a cornerstone of the nation’s clean energy future.”

Luminous hopes the LUMI robot will enhance productivity and safety on Australian solar farms by helping the existing workforce to install solar panels up to 3.5 times faster, without any need for heavy lifting. While LUMI has already demonstrated cost reductions on solar farms in the US, the ARENA project marks the first global deployment of a full fleet of five LUMI robots, unlocking the potential to lower solar farm costs by up to 6.2%.

Luminous has partnered with Equans, a global engineering, procurement and construction firm, to deploy LUMI at two Australian solar farms: the 440 MW Neoen Culcairn Solar Farm in New South Wales; and the 250 MW Engie Goorambat East Solar Farm in Victoria.

Luminous CEO Jay Wong said the company is thrilled to work with ARENA and Equans to showcase the future of solar construction in one of the world’s most advanced solar markets.

“With LUMI, we’re not just introducing a robot — we’re setting out to redefine the standard for how solar farms are built and help sites energise faster and safer,” he said. “Deploying our LUMI fleet in Australia will allow us to capture the data, performance insights and real-world impact needed to drive global adoption — the kind of scale and transformation we founded Luminous to achieve.”

Image caption: LUMI robot. Source: Luminous.