A comprehensive maintenance plan is critical for the longevity, reliability and performance of the PV system.
By: Rue Phillips, CEO, Co Founder, True South Renewables
When investing in any other asset of similar value to a solar PV system, it’s considered normal to have a budget and an annual maintenance plan to secure and prolong the life of the asset.
Assets such as cars, motorcycles, boats and holiday homes have annual maintenance budgets and plans. Why then is there still a myth about the importance of operating and maintaining solar PV systems?
The most likely answer is that because there so few moving parts, we’ve come to believe that you point the modules at the sun and the system generates electricity for decades without having to do anything.
When I decided to move away from the solar installation business and form a solar maintenance company, I had accumulated more than 1 MW (that’s a lot of 3 kW systems) in residential and more than 20 MW in commercial installations. I had primarily acted as the E and C in what we have come to know and accept as Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC). This was in the dawn of sudden solar growth in the United States, which began in residential and suddenly flipped over to distributed generation (DG).
Photo courtesy of True South Renewables
Much of this solar activity was concentrated in a small sector of the country, with large incentives driving the market. At that time, a typical solar system was being installed for around $12 per DC or STC watt. Everything was (and still is) sold in watts, so a 3-kW residential solar system was installed at $36,000 before rebates and incentives, which at peak totaled about 50% credits towards the cost of the system bringing a $36,000 system down to $18,000.
Fast forward to today, and that same system can be installed for about $11,500 before incentives which could bring that figure way below $10,000. What does this have to do with O&M? Glad you asked.
Prices of solar systems and the internal components — modules, inverters and balance of system (BOS) — are being slashed as federal and state incentives are being pulled away to ensure the our industry can exist on its own merits without financial aid. This is great for the longevity of our industry, but as prices for materials are being slashed labor isn’t getting any cheaper. The poor solar installer is forced by the competitive trends to reduce his/her labor price to an agonizing rate.
The result is a tendency to cut corners, and the quality of the systems suffers in both residential and DG. Thankfully this isn’t a widespread issue — there are many high-quality contractors out there who simply refuse to drop their prices to what would affect a quality installation.
For this reason I believe, the $1 per installed watt will most likely never happen. Therefore, long-term maintenance of the asset actually begins within the quality installation of the system, correct torques, wire management, mega-testing and of course scheduling and planning of mandatory annual preventative maintenance on critical moving parts of the system.
It’s a scientific fact that the mechanical components such as racking and conduits expand and contract literally inches every day in the hot sun. Add snow, hail and high wind conditions and imagine 25 years of this constant movement and severe weather on a 500-kW rooftop system that was worth $1.5M million when it was installed.
I conclude that a comprehensive maintenance plan of such an asset is mandatory for the longevity, reliability and performance of the PV system.
Read more about O&M:
2014 Trends: Solar Operations And Maintenance
Solar Is NOT Maintenance Free: The Growing U.S. Solar O&M Market
5 Factors Shaping the Solar O&M Market in the U.S. and Europe
5 Considerations Shaping U.S. Residential and Commercial Solar O&M