About the
Solar Best Practices
Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC), Operation and Maitnenance (O&M) and asset management are standalone segments within the solar industry. However, it is widely recognised that high-quality services across all three areas can provide serious benefits to soalr PV projects, including decreasing the Levelised Cost of Electricty (LCOE) and Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) prices, leading to a greater return on investment (ROI).
One of the main challenges facing solar services is the discrepancy in their quality. Reasons for this include increasing price pressure, lack of standardisation and minimum requirements, inadequate management processes, poorly qualified staff and insufficient use of digital data analytics, as well as increasing expectations of investors.
Responding to these challenges, SolarPower Europe’s Lifecycle Quality Workstream has developed the Solar Best Practices toolbox. A set of guidelines, checklists and of course the Solar Best Practices Mark.
Guidelines
The Solar Best Practices Guidelines are a suite of handbooks providing detailed recommendations on different solar services in line with the highest standards. Available guidelines are the O&M Best Practice Guidelines, the Asset Management Best Practice Guidelines, the EPC Best Practice Guidelines, and the Lifecycle Quality Best Practice Guidelines, prepared by SolarPower Europe, Europe’s leading solar industry association, to enhance service quality and standardisation in the industry.
Checklists
The Solar Best Practices Checklists are interactive tools to help service providers and clients to evaluate service quality transparently. Checklists are currently available for O&M, Asset Management, monitoring tool and aerial thermography services. They are based on the requirements presented in the best practice guidelines and have been prepared by SolarPower Europe.
Mark
The Solar Best Practices Mark is a suite of self-certification-based labels adapted from the Best Practice Guidelines and checklists. Its purpose is to create more transparency in solar services and incentivise excellence by providing visibility to companies that comply with the best practice recommendations through featuring their profiles in the Company Directory. Companies that qualify for the mark can also display it on their websites and other publicity materials.