O&M

Wood Mackenzie says O&M contract prices for US utility-scale project averaged $7.90/kW in 2022, underscoring the growing fragmentation of the solar O&M segment. However, the rankings of the top three vendors have remained unchanged from 2021.

When choosing a solar power plant, individuals and businesses pay the most attention to its power – after all, this will determine how much electricity will be produced. Other equipment, systems and sensors that allow monitoring and analysis of the operation of the power plant are often underestimated. But they shouldn’t be: the solar power plant will be used for several decades, so various failures and poor-quality monitoring can have a significant impact on the efficiency of electricity production.

There is a growing trend in the European renewable energy space that will likely give us a great overview of the future of the industry. As the industry scales up, we are seeing more big players emerge, who are investing in and managing multiple solar PV plants.

Belectric, Enerparc, Juwi and Baywa have almost 10 GW of project capacity under operation between them, according to monitoring service Solytic, roughly half the volume being managed by the next 32 biggest maintenance providers combined.

The Amsterdam-based, Australia and central Europe-facing developer saw sales slump thanks to Covid-19 last year but has touted a growing operational project portfolio.

A new report published by the European Technology and Innovation Platform outlines the need for continuing research into the reliability of PV systems and components, and for the collection and sharing of performance data. The report recommends a holistic approach to reliability, going beyond current testing standards to identify new degradation mechanisms, and making use of sensors and drone imaging to monitor systems in the field to prevent and report on system failures.

International researchers have developed data quality routines to ensure data fidelity in O&M practices. They reconstructed invalid data through a sequence of filtering stages and inference techniques.

U.S.-owned business intelligence firm Wood Mackenzie has attempted to evaluate the market opportunities offered by the repowering of solar projects around the world which feature inverters which are 10 years old – as well as those which will expire ahead of time.

A Spanish start-up has developed a system which offers automated fault detection in solar panels at any scale.

In a recent interview with pv magazine, Supreeth Srinivasa Rao – associate director of the industrial practice at Frost & Sullivan – explained how drones can minimize the need to send employees to project sites, as they can be deployed for monitoring, operations, and maintenance purposes.