Many of Solar Mango’s clients who are just about getting into installing solar power plants are already keen on knowing how to manage the operations & management of these power plants.
Most of these folks have in mind only O&M, and few, if any of them, discuss asset management. In fact, when I mention the term “asset management,” most of them revert asking whether asset management is any different from O&M – these folks feel it is just another term for O&M.
Those in the industry will tell you that Asset Management is not the same as O&M. In fact, O&M is a part of Asset Management, which involves more than just doing the routine management of a solar power plant.
While O&M mainly involves cleaning of solar panels and checking that all the panels are working fine, and reviewing the electricals mainly on the AC and DC side, some asset management functions go beyond this – includes warranty, insurance and claims management, proactive, module-level monitoring of all components and reporting on the same, and in some cases, even going to the extent of receivables management (where the offtaker is a government utility or a private company).
I will dwell more on this either here or in other blog posts soon, but for now, I thought I’d let you know, especially for the readers from North America, about the Solar Asset Management North America event to be held in Mar 2016 ar SFO.
The blurb from the event site goes as follows:
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Solar Asset Management North America is the largest event entirely dedicated to Solar Asset Management and O&M in North America. The 3rd edition of the 2-day conference and compact exhibition will take place in San Francisco March 16-17, 2016. Joined by 400+ leading developers, investors, O&M service providers, IPPs, utilities, monitoring and data companies, legal and financial advisors, Solar Asset Management North America is the place where to learn everything you need to know to optimize performances and maximize financial returns of your PV assets.
Key topics:
- Applying O&M best practices from other energy sources
- Optimizing the utility scale M&A process
- Real weather impact on plant performance
- Understanding, Controlling, Driving down true cost of O&M and AM
- Automation and IT in Solar
- NERC, FERC, Cybersecurity regulation
- Battery storage O&M
- Solar O&M and Asset Management Best Practices
For more information about program, speakers, sponsors and previous editions, visit www.solarassetmanagement.us.
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