Solar Operation and Maintenance

Solar Operation and Maintenance

With our unrivalled rooftop solar PV expertise, Analytics Engineering can give peace of mind to any solar PV array owner regardless of who installed the system. From our experience of solar we recommend, as a minimum, an annual inspection visit so your solar PV operates at its optimum performance each year, protecting both your return on investment and contributing to your electrical compliance regime.
We recognise that commercial solar PV owners have different needs and therefore our operation and maintenance service offers three tiered options outlined at the bottom of the page. These can be further customised to tailor a solution that meets your requirements.
Our operation and maintenance service is available for solar PV systems from 20 kWp up to multi MWp sites.

Cleaning solar panels

We are often asked about cleaning solar panels as they can accumulate dirt over time which can reduce the efficiency of sunlight capture and ultimately reduce the amount of electricity generated by your system. In most cases, the self-cleaning properties of the panels and the angle of installation is sufficient enough for the regular rainfall in Ghana to remove any build up of dirt.
Our experience is that this tends to make a solar panel clean uneconomical for the cost.
Where soiling is significant, perhaps due to excessive dirt during harmattan season, we can arrange cleaning solar panels for your array visit which is normally carried out with non-scratch brushes attached to poles with a constant supply of water and cleaning agent.

Solar panel maintenance and monitoring

The solar panel system has two main components; the roof mounting and panels, and the inverter(s). The solar panels and roof mounting are exposed to the elements of the UK climate with wind exerting pressure on the mechanical integrity of the PV system, and the rain impacting both the panel’s electrical string connections and the roof seals under the mounting system.
The inverters are the working part of the solar PV system, receiving and converting the sunlight energy into useable AC electricity and thus part of your electrical compliance regime. The safe and effective working of the entire solar PV system determines the electricity generated and the return received on your solar PV investment.
​ Our preventative solar panel maintenance plan is designed to help you achieve and maximise your solar PV investment return, and to help with your risk management as part of your annual electrical compliance regime. Like the MOT of your vehicles, we recommend annual solar panel maintenance for all commercial PV systems in addition to daily monitoring. Sophisticated solar panel monitoring can automatically prompt any potential generation issues straight away to allow immediate rectification from a maintenance engineer before they become bigger, more expensive problems.

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Solar panel service and repair

Without a preventative maintenance plan in place you run the risk of a potential breakdown, requiring the need for an urgent solar panel service or repair to identify the issue and bring your system back online safely. This reactive approach can be expensive and also leave your business without PV generation whilst our team arrive onsite to diagnose/repair the problem.
When your system is offline or not able to operate to its maximum potential due to a fault, this downtime is impacting on your system’s return on investment. If a fault is anticipated, we advise that you don’t diagnose the fault yourself for health and safety reasons. Always contact your solar PV installer or O&M provider first for advice. We are available to provide a reactive solar panel service and repair, however, we always recommend a preventative maintenance plan as highlighted above.

maintenance plan as highlighted above.

Is your original solar PV installer no longer in business?

With a large number of solar PV installers going out of business in recent years, we are helping many commercial clients who have been left without support for their system – if you are one of these companies, have peace of mind that we are here to support you with your system maintenance and operational needs.

Operation and maintenance options

Option 1 | Annual maintenance visit

This option allows you to request a one-off non-contract maintenance visit where one of our qualified electrical technicians will perform a visual initial inspection of your system and re-test electrical components and consumables*. Also included is a review of the data collected by the inverter and any fault codes identified. A shading analysis is conducted before a detailed report of findings is delivered to you with any recommendations for remedial or maintenance work, which we can carry out at additional cost.

Components and consumables that are immediately accessible will be tested.

Option 2 | Monitoring and annual visit

This option allows you to benefit from our specialised monitoring service of your solar PV system (minimum 12 month contract term) in addition to the annual maintenance visit, detailed in option 1. Our ongoing ‘real time’ monitoring of your system will highlight generation issues and if your system goes offline, we will notify you within 24 business hours. Any remedial or maintenance work can then be arranged at additional cost. Whilst live generation will be made available to you online, we will also provide a monthly or quarterly generation report for your records which compares actual to expected performance.
With an extensive number of solar PV installations and given the variance of local weather, to really understand your system’s performance, we also benchmark against the performance of our other solar PV installations in your local area.

Option 3 | Operation, maintenance and repair

The full OR&M option (minimum 12 month contract term) gives you all the benefits of option 2 plus peace of mind that you have priority response for an agreed number of remedial repair visits and up to GHC 1, 200 +VAT towards consumable costs per year. Furthermore, Analytics Engineering can take ownership of your feed in tariff and warranty management, and implement various additional levels of system monitoring from live daily meter readings to individual inverter monitoring.