When considering best practice for managing operational portfolios, one of the most important areas is optimising Asset Management processes. Above all, it is essential that the asset functions to the best of its ability, which requires efficient procedures. There are many ways to approach this, but over the past few years, top asset managers have made one thing clear time and time again: digitisation is key.
Why digitise your Asset Management?
Digitising the asset management process is a clear trend in the industry, but why is it gaining so much traction?
It is stating the obvious to say that managing solar PV assets is a highly complex undertaking. Even a single asset contains many intricacies in terms of components, their maintenance and repair, and how the hardware interacts with the O&M team’s control and strategic processes.
A fundamental characteristic of the renewables sector is continuous change: assets change, contractors change; market relationships change; interaction with the electricity grid changes – and the personnel who know how to manage specific operational processes change, leaving nothing behind except a selection of opaque Excel files. This leaves management teams without a process and, even worse, without the vital know-how that created it.
That's why renewable energy asset managers can no longer rely on administering these processes with a few Excel sheets like it was in the days when solar plants just had a few central inverters, contractual guarantees at inverter level, and a fixed energy price. Faced with the complexity of present-day processes, Excel is not up to the task.
However, this data-driven evolution should not be seen as a problem, but an opportunity. Greater process complexity compels us to develop automated, analytical solutions to transform that data into a helpful form for the asset manager, with the potential to be used in a variety of different ways throughout an asset’s lifecycle. This allows the asset manager to make informed decisions backed by data, greatly enhancing their capacity for scenario analysis.
It must be stressed that this is not a call to replace people with machines. Only sentient human beings can understand the information being processed and possess the ability to place this information in context – something that computers are not capable of. Human beings must remain in the driver’s seat, but it should be made as easy as possible for them to assimilate the data necessary for important strategic and operational decisions.
Digitalisation offers a range of powerful tools and methods to help PV asset managers handle changes in technology and processes. The real impact of digitisation is how it boosts the efficiency, flexibility, and reliability of the human teams responsible for decision-making by vastly streamlining the gathering and processing of data.
Asset Management digitisation: how does it work?
Each management process is unique, so the data matrix (map of data sources) will differ from portfolio to portfolio – or even from asset to asset. With this in mind, we believe in developing specific solutions adapted to each company’s operational reality and based on their people’s knowledge. These solutions should be flexible in their implementation, and their ability to evolve along with the requirements of the job. We enable this by conducting a wide-ranging consultation with the client, allowing us to understand their processes and needs, and adapt our solutions accordingly.
Digitisation processes for solar asset management generally fall into one of three areas:
1. Data management, strategy and reporting
- Data-Driven Insights. Digital tools can aggregate and analyse large volumes of data from many disparate sources, providing insights that can inform strategic decisions regarding upgrades, expansions, or process improvements.
- Centralised Management Platforms. Digital platforms can integrate different aspects of PV site management, such as operations, maintenance, and financial performance, into a single dashboard for easier oversight.
- Automated Reporting. Digital systems can automatically generate reports required for regulatory compliance, cutting workloads and reducing the risk of errors.
- Scalable Solutions. Digital platforms offer easily scalability, growing alongside PV installations themselves, and allowing asset managers to handle larger and more complex portfolios without a proportional rise in the administrative burden.
2. Optimised operations
- Operational Efficiency. Automating routine tasks and optimising resource allocation via digital tools can reduce operational costs.
- Anomaly Detection. By analysing data trends, we can identify anomalies that may indicate issues such as shading, dirt accumulation, or equipment malfunctions.
- Lifecycle Management. Digital tools can track the lifecycle of each component, helping managers to plan maintenance, replacements and upgrades efficiently.
- Energy Storage Systems. Digital platforms can manage the integration of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), optimising the use of stored energy and improving grid stability.
3. Enhanced networking
- Stakeholder Engagement. Digital platforms facilitate better communication and collaboration among various stakeholders, including investors, technicians, and regulatory bodies.
- Knowledge Sharing. Digital tools can store and disseminate best practices, effective training materials, and technical documentation, aiding in the continuous improvement of processes and technology adoption.
- Scenario Analysis. Asset managers can use digital simulations to model different scenarios and assess the impact of innovative technologies or changes in processes in a virtual “cost-free” environment before implementation.
- Adaptability. Digital solutions can be quickly updated and adapted to incorporate new technologies, standards, and market conditions, ensuring that PV sites remain at the cutting edge of efficiency and performance.
Asset Management digitisation in action: three ways Quintas Analytics helps manage change
Information technology underpins all digitisation efforts, with streams of data fuelling management processes. For PV site and BESS projects asset managers, digitalisation and process automation offer tools to enhance performance, optimise maintenance, ensure compliance, and integrate new technologies smoothly. At Quintas, we believe this technology should empower teams rather than impose a whole new system, ensuring that digitisation streamlines without creating additional tasks.
That’s why, Quintas Analytics focuses on automating and optimising existing systems. Our approach aims for an adaptable evolution to meet operational needs and boost results. With extensive experience in asset management, we understand its challenges and objectives deeply, prioritising proven solutions developed by asset managers, for asset managers. These three examples show how Quintas Analytics solutions can take your asset management processes to the next level:
1. Revenue Management
For revenue management, we must rapidly react to increasingly detailed price signals in an ever-growing number of markets, such as secondary, tertiary, and substitution reserve. Our Revenue Estimation Reporting service can optimise revenue management, by calculating earnings based on hourly market rates and contracted PPA prices.
Another challenge which asset managers constantly face is to complete the provision process as quickly as possible, especially with the growing risk of negative pricing. We have experience of this phenomenon, and the solutions with which to manage it.
2. Contractual Management
For contractual management, it is necessary to calculate legal guarantees down to string level and analyse tracker compliance. To optimise production and maximise revenue, it’s important to keep track of panel performance, address disconnection issues – and where possible tie any problems to warranties, something that we successfully managed with our Contractual Calculation Reporting service when calculating and providing asset managers with a weekly list of strings, ranking them from lowest to highest availability, identifying disconnections and comparing them with the performance guaranteed by the manufacturer.
3. Asset Management
For the day-to-day process, asset managers need to be able to spot production anomalies across large plants or portfolios, at high granularity. Our Asset Manager’s Reporting service not only provides expert reporting and analysis, but also enables the optimisation of operations and maximum returns by mastering the specific data. This is particularly useful for tasks which necessitate the collation of varied data from multiple sources and locations, such as calculating KPIs to comply with ESG standards, or for compiling regular reports to facilitate smarter and better-informed decision making.
All the services described above are far more than just notional, having been practically tested in the field. They have been implemented at solar PV and storage facilities across Europe and Australia – with impressive results.
With such practical examples available to demonstrate the many advantages digitisation brings, it is easy to see why it is increasingly accepted as a key driver in the expansion and evolution of the renewable energy sector. With ever-increasing size and complexity comes an ever-more urgent need for effective management – fortunately, this is becoming far more achievable every day, due to digital process automation.
Are you ready to optimise your operations through digitisation? Contact us today for a consultation.
