Welcome to the fifth edition of SolarPower Europe’s Operation & Maintenance (O&M) Best Practice Guidelines.
O&M is a hugely important sector for the solar PV industry and for the EU. Based on its 100% Renewable Europe study, SolarPower Europe calculates that an additional 870 GW of solar PV installations will be required for the EU to meet its 2030 emissions commitments. This rapid growth makes it even more important to ensure that industry best practices are harmonised, allowing O&M service providers to scale up their operations while maintaining quality standards.
These guidelines take a more integrated approach to occupational health & safety by combining them with security and environmental protection in a revamped Health, Safety, Security, and Environment chapter. The Innovations and trends chapter has been updated to include innovative new field inspection techniques, such as drone-based UV Fluorescence imaging. Furthermore, the increasing popularity of commercial & industrial, and residential rooftop PV installations has led to an overhaul of the O&M for rooftop solar chapter to separate these two segments and provide more specialised recommendations. Finally, this fifth edition has seen the Definitions chapter move to the new Lifecycle Quality Guidelines, reflecting the overall importance of a shared language between the stakeholders of a solar PV project.
This document is the first O&M Best Practice Guidelines produced by the newly rebranded Lifecycle Quality Workstream. It builds on 2019’s fourth edition and is the result of a year of intensive work by 29 leading solar experts, from 20 companies. The contributors work across the solar PV industry and include O&M service providers, Asset Managers, Asset Owners, renewable energy consultants, legal experts, digital solutions providers, and technical advisors.
The Workstream has been busy in 2021, updating the EPC and O&M Best Practice Guidelines and writing the new Lifecycle Quality Guidelines. Members have also been involved in several international projects, including cooperating with the South African PV Industry Association (SAPVIA) to produce the South African edition of the O&M Best Practice Guidelines (launched in October 2021). The Workstream has also launched projects to create the Indian and Sub-Saharan African editions of the EPC Best Practice Guidelines and will be working to complete these and a new Jordanian edition of the O&M Best Practice Guidelines.
We thank our members for their extraordinary level of engagement, which reflects the importance of lifecycle quality for our sector. We will continue the work in 2022 and invite interested stakeholders to join our Workstream activities and help us further improve our contribution to the solar PV industry.
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