The PV Health Report: Lessons from A Fieldwork Expert on Elevating Asset Care

Solar power is fundamentally safe and reliable, but only when it is properly installed and maintained. This session is a data-rich deep-dive into the most overlooked PV system issues and how to prevent them. Findings come the SolarGrade Health Report, a comprehensive analysis of PV health data points from hundreds of field inspections in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The session will cover key conclusions from the report, including a ranking of the top issues and the project conditions that increase the likelihood of safety risks. The session will urge attendees to think beyond the meter when assessing system health. On-the-ground solar fieldwork generates vital safety and reliability data that cannot be obtained from any other source – not drone or plane flyovers, remote monitoring tools, or even inverter error logs. Yet field data is often siloed in PDF reports and inconsistent O&M logs. Critical PV health information can easily fall through the cracks as systems age, O&M providers change, and ownership is transferred.