KPIs & Reporting in Solar PV Projects-A new standard worth following.

In Solar PV projects, there is much overlap between the high-level-tasks of operation team and the technical responsibilities of an asset manager.

The O&M contractor assumes the responsibility of reporting the KPIs and can be considered doing a part of the job of technical asset management.

In case the technical Asset Manager and O&M contractor are separate entities, close coordination and information sharing is a must between these two.

The Technical asset manager is responsible for preparation and submission of regular reports to the Asset Owner.

The reporting frequency is usually specified by the Asset Owner and often the asset owner may ask for special reports also.

The following table shows the recommendations being adopted in Europe. (Solar Power Europe launches O&M Best Practices Guidelines)

As time goes by, the standards being followed globally are getting unified and it is better to take note of these developments and proactively adopt these standards especially when it improves the operational efficiency.

Key Performance Indicators.

To bring transparency to operations and to improve operations, a new trend being followed is to extend the reporting beyond the pure PV plant indicators and to incorporate reporting on the actual site activities.

This means that the O&M contractor needs to have a CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System) in order to measure various O&M KPIs like acknowledgement time, intervention time, reaction time, resolution time) and equipment performance (e.g. Mean time Between Failures).

Another aspect that the Technical manager would have to report is the Spare Parts Management (like spare parts stock levels, spare parts consumption etc.) so as to be able to take timely steps not to have stock outs.

With the emergence of Predictive Maintenance, it will be best if the technical asset Manager can also report on the status of each equipment (like individual equipment down time).

Periodic reporting can also include status of security and surveillance system if installed.

It will be best if reports also include major faults contributing to PR and availability losses with a pre-defined threshold (say 1%)

NDZ Renewables’ Work Flow Management and Cloud based Monitoring & Analytics are examples of a CMMS system which will fulfil the above needs.

https://www.slideshare.net/radhakrishnamundoli/work-flow-management-from-ndimensionz

https://www.slideshare.net/radhakrishnamundoli/pv-monitoring-software-from-ndimensionz