From 2024, we will see a steep rise in adopting renewable energy solutions for our power needs. For the solar energy industry, it will move beyond being an energy source for remote areas. It will become mainstream across residential and commercial complexes.
This rise in demand poses a new challenge for solar businesses: performing inspections to ensure you deliver promised quality to varied customers who may not truly understand how solar technology works.
With field service management software, you can effectively perform tasks under solar business management, including handling inspections and ensuring quality.
How does studying data help improve quality assurance workflows for solar businesses?
We will understand this by learning about challenges in inspection and QA workflows for the solar industry and how comprehensive data analysis with insights helps:
1. Identify defective panels
The first step of solar maintenance is identifying defective panels requiring attention. That too, amidst an array of functioning ones, can be like finding a needle in a haystack.
If your FSM software has predictive analytics, it can help you practice proactive solar maintenance. This means it will utilize historical performance data and equipment standards to flag potential issues, thus minimizing downtime.
2. Adhere to environmental compliance
To continue receiving support from the government and NGOs for renewable energy projects, one has to adhere to environmental regulations and compliance to ensure safety and reliability.
Using FSM software, you can automate workflows that help track and analyze your operations and equipment data. It will create reports that you can gain insights from to align with regulatory parameters. Or you can also rely on commercial solar installers who can keep track of all these changes and help you adhere to the regulatory requirements. You can instantly showcase these reports during compliance checks. By automating compliance checks, solar companies can mitigate risks and avoid costly penalties.
3. Track inventory for spare parts
Maintaining an accurate inventory of spare parts and equipment is crucial for timely repairs and replacements. This will keep your solar business management practices always on the toes so that you’re always ready to cater to any failures.
FSM software offers real-time inventory tracking. This helps solar businesses to monitor stock levels, reorder supplies automatically, and prevent stockouts. This also streamlines vendor management via automation, where no manual work is required to maintain vendor relationships.
Thus, your technicians are always equipped right and don’t have to waste time on the bench waiting for the right parts to arrive.
4. Automate inspection scheduling
Scheduling and dispatching are critical for any field work, including solar maintenance tasks. Having past data to anticipate any potential maintenance helps manage your field service technicians.
FSM software automates the scheduling of routine inspections based on predefined criteria such as system age, location, and maintenance history. This ensures timely inspections and prevents disruptions to solar operations.
5. Fault detection and diagnostics
Over time, solar panel systems may experience performance degradation. It could be due to several factors such as soiling, shading, module mismatch, or aging components. Solar business software enables solar businesses to identify subtle changes in system performance that may indicate degradation
Here’s how it works: FSM software employs algorithms to analyze solar panel or equipment performance data. It detects anomalies indicative of potential faults or inefficiencies in solar panel systems and then alerts you via notifications.
If you’re using special software for detecting faults, then you can integrate it with solar business software and share data to get more insights and alerts.
6. Cloud-based data storage and security
Whether you’re just starting with your solar startup or an enterprise, cloud-based data storage offers scalability and accessibility advantages for everyone. Instead of relying on local servers with limited capacity, FSM software leverages cloud infrastructure to store vast amounts of inspection data, performance metrics, and inventory records.
Using this comprehensive data, one can implement proactive solar maintenance and inspections. With the cloud, you need not worry about storage constraints or infrastructure upgrades. It also facilitates remote access to data from any location with an internet connection—thus, helping your field service technicians to be more agile, collaborative, and available.
Looking for suitable solar business software for maintenance and inspection? – we can help
Zuper is a comprehensive field service management software that takes care of all solar business management workflows, including solar maintenance. With AI-enabled scheduling, predictive maintenance, and analytics, you’re equipped to provide proactive maintenance—book a demo to learn more.
