Phalanxes of more than 80 machines — cleaning units designed by Israeli technology start-up Ecoppia to sweep efficiency-killing dirt and sand off PV modules — glide back and forth along the panel frames at the eight-hectare Siemens-Arava array each night, using an innovative microfibre and air-flow system to keep output from the 5MW pilot plant at its peak.

Results at the world’s first autonomously cleaned solar installation, in a brutally hot stretch of land between the Gulf of Aqaba and the southern tip of the Dead Sea, have been impressive.

A