On site inspections and Remote Solar Monitoring.

There are 2 ways to ensure your PV Solar system is performing optimally and safely. Remote monitoring of the system’s performance, environment and faults, or sending a technician to site to perform an in-depth on site inspections. Both have their own pros and cons. Let’s take a closer look

Remote Monitoring

These days all prevalent and Tier 1 inverters will come with their own in-built monitoring, registered at the time of system install. At their most basic, they’ll tell you how many kWh have been produced for a particular time period, with more advanced systems showing you production on individual panels.

They will also tell you about the faults that the inverter can detect in the form of specific fault numbers, and perhaps a brief definition of this fault code, identifying system issues you would not have known about otherwise. However, it won’t be able to elaborate on those issues or give you suggestions of how to resolve them. They also have limitations with what faults they can detect, or push out ‘false positives’, meaning faults which are not system impacting, are not faults at all, or will resolve themselves in the short term. There are more complex monitoring systems, but most require expensive hardware and installation onsite.

Remote monitoring also only detects solar performance, and cannot detect any system issue which requires visual determination.

On Site Inspections

Sending a technician for an on site inspection to site is not an everyday thing. It might happen once or twice a year. What it lacks in frequency it makes up for in depth.

A typical inspection will test all the major components and visually check all major componentry including panels, cables, isolators, mounting and inverters and communication. Primarily it will be able to identify wear and tear, key safety concerns, if the power parameters are still within their design constraints and check for non-compliance issues. Inspections can also include thermal scans to pick up issues invisible to the eye.

On site inspections will come with a detailed report with photos and comment on everything that was reviewed. It will also include recommendations on maintenance and remediations that might be needed in the near future to help optimise production, minimise downtime and mitigate safety risks on your solar system.

Conclusion

The 2 techniques work, Remote solar monitoring and On site inspections, hand in hand as both serve different and complementary purposes. Industrias would recommend a combination of both for any solar system. However, inspections can take various forms and frequencies and it is up to you and your solar maintenance partner to determine the best solution for your asset based on location and design.