Renewable energy system maintenance is more important than you think.
We don’t half go on about this! However, recent events warrant us to highlight again the importance of maintenance.
We recognise the cost of having maintenance carried out, and the cost of travel is even higher just now because of the increasing cost of diesel. Though we have not increased our mileage rate we recognise other activities that our Clients carry out will be costing them more.
To that end we are developing our remote monitoring capability and our part sponsorship of a graduate placement (in conjunction with Highlands and Islands Enterprise) is driving this along. Remote monitoring will help us to help you, without necessarily coming to site, saving on costs and reducing the down time of your plant. More on this in a future newsletter.
However, whilst there is a cost to carrying out renewable energy system maintenance, there is a less visible but possibly larger cost to the lack of maintenance. This comes in the form of reduced revenue.
We recently attended a hydro scheme for its annual maintenance and what we found was frustrating and slightly gob smacking.
The intake screen was so dirty it was likely reducing output of the system (and therefore revenue) by 20-30%. Over the 3-4 months it would have taken for this to build up, that would have amounted to more than the cost of our service.
A well-serviced and efficiently operated system (solar, wind or hydro) will avoid these unseen losses, helping owners to make the revenues that cover the cost of the plant itself, and its upkeep.
Contact us if you have a question about renewable energy system maintenance, or if it’s getting near the time email us to book your maintenance.