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How to optimize Your Solar Asset’s Profitability at Every Phase

By March 10, 2021November 22nd, 2023No Comments

A solar asset lifecycle involves a series of stages in managing an asset. It starts with the planning stages and continues through its useful life and eventual disposal. The importance of any given asset lifecycle is determined by several factors, including how costly the asset is to replace, how crucial it is to the business and the overall reliability of the asset. The solar asset lifecycle can be tracked in different ways and is generally monitored in some manner, even if it’s not formalized.

When maintenance is neglected, stakeholders struggle with the resulting unexpected breakdowns, reduced income, and emergency maintenance. When properly maintained, asset lifecycles can make maintaining and managing your valuable assets much easier for everyone concerned.

With some assets, you don’t require oversight into every phase of their lifecycle (I’m thinking a hammer or maybe some nice shoes), but with complex assets such as a PV site, you need to be on top of and manage the entire lifecycle.

Pre-Construction phase

The Pre-construction approach is an aerial survey for a ground mount PV construction project that equips development and engineering teams with site assessment data and earthwork progress. This allows smooth transition from the pre-construction and earthwork stages to constructing the solar PV system. The aerial topographic mapping saves you time compared to traditional surveys and at a fraction of the cost allowing you to:

• Win more bids
• Optimize pre-construction planning
• Make informed decisions
• Create CAD Plans
• Deliver cm accuracy with the Topographic survey
• Precise site assessment and measurements
• Export 3D Models, Point clouds

Construction Phase

Using drone data and the Sitemark Fuse platform for solar site construction to track progress, monitor quality, and quickly address problems optimizes yours costs and efficiency specially when compared to traditional manual methods. Use the platform to:

• Keep your project on track: Track site progress and productivity against design, such as trenching, piles, modules and structures

• Spot and address problems: Avoid expensive rework by spotting problems using real-time aerial data
• Improve collaboration and reporting: No more data silos. Keep all of your information validated as a single source of truth (minimize arguing). Generate reports in PDF or CSV formats to share with stakeholders

• AI Powered Progress monitoring: Know your project’s latest status as needed. Sitemark Fuse automatically detects objects such as modules, piles and structures using AI delivering immediate data turnaround

• Check Against CAD design: Spot problems immediately by importing your CAD design files (e.g. DXF and DWG) into Sitemark Fuse. Check progress and quality automatically using our unique object fusing technology which allows you to check the history of every asset.

Commissioning Phase

• Have confidence that the solar site is in working condition and producing energy
• Confirm equipment is installed correctly
• Take advantage of thermal & visual anomaly classification to promptly identify poorly performing panels
• Compare with CAD Design for validation

Operations & Monitoring Phase

Whether you are an Asset Manager, O&M or EPC Contractor, it is critical to have complete insight into the status of your solar assets to reduce risk and optimize profitability. When you are finally at the step to produce energy and generate revenue this step essential to have full insight into the asset for all stakeholders. Regular aerial inspections in this phase deliver:

• Maximized power production and profitability
• Improved operational efficiency
• Reduced risk
• Thermal Anomaly classification to identify panel issues
• Cause detection to prioritize repairs

Sell and Acquire Phase

• Get an objective view on the state of the asset
• Show a verified track record
• PDF Reporting for ease of sharing with all stakeholders
• Lifecycle history for more than just a current snapshot of the asset
• Loss estimation to determine overall revenue potential

Sitemark strives to bring value at each step of the asset lifecycle. Get in touch to want to find out more.