Investments in FiT related investment schemes are generally regarded as low risk and long-term to offer a healthy return. Although investors are unlikely to lose money, as these are stable Government backed schemes, the return on investment could be at risk. To comply with due diligence on an investor’s attitude to risk, as set out by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), advisers should direct clients to invest accordingly – but what if the investment assets are not cared for sufficiently. This could result in lost revenue, and high repair costs, having a direct impact on the investor return.
Although these low risk investments are unlikely to leave investors high and dry, there are implications that they could have significantly lower returns than originally promoted if the performance and maintenance isn’t properly managed. The predicted yield is based on pyranometer systems, providing theoretical data from static ‘perfect’ sites stationed around the UK. This leaves a broad parameter for monitoring performance against, to allow for variances in positioning based on location, orientation and pitch.
Most monitoring systems compare readings on solar panel yield against data from the pyranometer systems. But do you know how well your solar PV system is actually performing? The wide parameters for accepted energy production means that your panels could be under performing against predicted yield and their potential. Panels could be damaged or have restricted light flowing to them which is not immediately obvious from this type of remote monitoring.
Not only will you be losing money during any down time of the panels, the cumulative effect of under-performance will mean a long-term shortfall in FiT return.
To ensure that you’re PV assets are performing to the maximum yield possible and continue to do so, it is important to have a monitoring and maintenance programme in place to manage assets. This should include an advanced monitoring system as well as preventative maintenance and care. Ecovision’s Asset Management services offer licensing to industry leading cloud-based monitoring platform EAMS that benchmarks performance against actual installed rooftop PV within a localised area. In addition our maintenance and warranty service means we will ensure your PV assets are properly maintained, and will respond to any under-performances flagged through monitoring.
