The solar market has been growing at breakneck speed and the predictions for the future are getting growing bolder by the day. However, today it is not just the project developers, hardware manufacturers, EPCs and banks and who are keeping busy supporting the solar industry’s growth…
As the global installed base for solar is expected to surpass 200 GW this year, there is already quite a significant base of solar assets to manage on a day today basis. Until about a year ago the concept of actively managing solar assets has always been a bit of an afterthought. Investors and banks had been sold the thesis that solar is a very low risk asset class with predictable cash flows. But this does not mean that solar does not require any asset management.
Regardless if the sun shines or does not shine, the banks want to receive their debt service in time. And the PPA off taker wants their guaranteed solar energy delivery as scheduled. All the investor cares about at the end of the day is receiving the returns on investment they expect. And someone has to ensure that this happens.
Enter the solar asset manager. What does the asset manager do? In the industry there is still a wide spread conception that Asset Management is the same as operations and maintenance (O&M). But there are actually four distinct roles in asset management.
One of the roles includes taking care of the ‘wellbeing’ of the physical assets. Activities include regular inspections, maintenance, calibrations and cleaning, but a can also include maintenance of the site on which the asset is located, for example vegetation abatement, snow removal or erosion control. A second role takes care of the active monitoring of the asset, taking care of any corrective maintenance and looking for performance improvements. Together these 2 roles are defined as O&M or technical asset management.
