Posted on Jul 11, 2012 |

This column appeared in Solar Novus Today on July 9, 2012. You can read the original here.

By Wayne Williford, SPG Solar

At some point, a common misconception was developed that solar is a “get it and forget it” kind of technology. Like the car in your driveway, the truth is that a solar power systems need to be properly maintained in order for your customers to maximize their investment. And car maintenance is pretty easy when you understand what the dashboard is telling you. The same is true with a solar power system.

Operations & maintenance best practices
The operations and maintenance (O&M) of a solar power system can be understood if you have the right monitoring system, which is the dashboard into a solar power system. It is the crux to understanding the operations of solar power systems and to verify that production and financial parameters are being met on a daily basis. A data acquisition system is a software tool that both you and your customers can use to see how their system is performing. The industry expects that a solar power system is consistently producing power 99% of the time. This is known as the uptime rating. By keeping systems running at the highest uptime rating, your customer’s systems will be generating more solar electricity and therefore earning a higher return on investment.

Read the rest of the article here.