Specialist work
Operations and maintenance — the losses you cannot see
Planned maintenance and generation review for commissioned plants — because a soiled array and a failing string look identical from the ground.
12 days
Downtime found in a 77-day window
Simta Foods monitoring record — published rather than edited out
~15%
Of that period, offline
Twelve days of a 77-day monitored window
Gradual
How soiling loss arrives
Slow enough that nobody notices without monitoring
Whether this fits
Work out whether you should be talking to me at all
This is for you if
Your plant is large enough that a week offline is real money
At industrial scale, an inverter fault nobody notices for ten days costs more than a year of maintenance.
Nobody currently looks at your monitoring data
Monitoring that produces data nobody reads is not monitoring. This is the single most common gap on installed plants in Pakistan.
Your generation has drifted down and you do not know why
Soiling, a failing string, a dead optimiser and inverter derating all look the same from the ground and are distinguishable in data.
Your installer has disappeared
A common situation, and a legitimate reason to bring in someone who was not involved in the original build.
This is not for you if
Small domestic systems where an annual clean and a look at the app is genuinely sufficient. I will tell you that rather than sell you a contract.
Owners wanting a maintenance contract as insurance against equipment failure. Manufacturer warranties cover that; maintenance covers performance, and conflating the two lets people sell you both.
Plants where the real problem is a design fault. Maintenance does not fix undersized DC cable or a string sized outside the MPPT window — that needs correcting, not cleaning.
Scope
What is included, as deliverables rather than adjectives
- 01 Generation review
- Actual output against expected for the season, resolved to string level where the monitoring supports it.
- 02 Cleaning schedule
- Frequency set by your actual soiling rate and site conditions rather than by a generic interval.
- 03 Thermal inspection
- Hot-spot detection across modules and connections — the way a failing cell or a loose termination is found before it fails.
- 04 Electrical inspection
- DC and AC terminations checked for tightness and heat damage, isolators and protection devices verified.
- 05 Structural check
- Clamp and fastener torque, corrosion, and roof penetration integrity after monsoon.
- 06 Warranty administration
- Register maintained with expiry dates, and claims raised on your behalf while the equipment is still covered.
The Simta Foods generation record on this site shows twelve days of downtime in a 77-day monitored window — roughly 15% of the period. I publish that figure rather than editing it out, and it is the best argument for maintenance I can make.
A megawatt plant that is off for ten days has lost more revenue than several years of maintenance costs. Nobody was being negligent; the plant simply stopped and it was not noticed quickly enough. That is the failure mode maintenance exists to prevent, and it is far more common than equipment failure.
Soiling: the loss that never announces itself
Dust loading in Pakistan is heavy and yield projections routinely ignore it. An array that is never cleaned loses a meaningful fraction of its output, and the loss arrives gradually enough that nobody notices — there is no day on which the system stops working, just a slow drift downward that becomes the new normal.
How often an array needs cleaning is site-specific. A plant beside an unpaved road in an agricultural district soils far faster than an urban rooftop, and both differ by season. A generic quarterly interval is a guess; the right frequency comes from watching what your own array actually does after a clean.
What thermal inspection finds
A thermal camera finds the things that are on their way to failing rather than the things that have failed. Hot spots on modules indicate cell damage or shading; hot terminations indicate a connection that was not properly torqued at installation and is now heating under load.
That second category is worth emphasising, because a loose DC termination is both the most preventable and the most serious fault on a PV installation. It is found in ninety seconds with a camera and it is invisible in every other way until something burns.
Warranties expire whether or not you claim
Tier-one modules typically carry a 12-year product warranty and 25 to 30-year performance warranty; inverters typically 5 to 10 years. Those clocks run regardless of whether anybody is watching them, and a plant with a degrading string in year eleven is in a very different position from the same plant in year thirteen.
Part of maintenance is therefore administrative rather than technical: keeping a register with expiry dates, and raising claims while equipment is still covered. A warranty you have to chase alone is worth considerably less than one someone chases for you, and a warranty nobody noticed had expired is worth nothing at all.
Plants I did not build
I take maintenance on systems installed by others, and it is a common enquiry — usually because the original installer has become unreachable. The first visit is longer than a routine one, because it includes establishing what is actually there: what was installed, how it was configured, and whether the performance you are seeing is a maintenance problem or a design problem. Those need different answers, and cleaning an array will not fix undersized DC cable.
Sources
- Simta Foods plant monitoring export, 9 May – 21 Jul 2026, consolidated in the YTECH SOLAR generation performance report Checked 21 Jul 2026
Delivered
Work in this category, with the figures attached
Questions
What clients ask before they commit
- How often should solar panels be cleaned in Pakistan?
- It depends on your site rather than on a standard interval. A plant beside an unpaved road in an agricultural district soils far faster than an urban rooftop, and both vary by season. The honest method is to measure output before and after a clean and set the frequency from what your own array actually loses — a generic quarterly schedule is a guess that is either wasting money or leaving output on the roof.
- How do I know if my solar system is underperforming?
- By comparing output against what is expected for the season, ideally at string level. From the ground a soiled array and a failing string look identical; in monitoring data they are entirely distinguishable — soiling pulls all strings down together and gradually, while a fault drops one string sharply. If nobody reads your monitoring data, you will find out about a fault when the bill arrives.
- Do you maintain systems you did not install?
- Yes, and it is a frequent request — usually because the original installer is no longer reachable. The first visit takes longer because it includes establishing what was actually installed and how it was configured, and determining whether the performance shortfall is a maintenance issue or a design fault. Those require different remedies, and no amount of cleaning fixes undersized DC cable.
- What does thermal imaging show on a solar plant?
- Faults that are developing rather than faults that have happened. Hot spots on modules indicate cell damage or persistent shading; hot terminations indicate a connection that was never properly torqued and is heating under load. That second one is the most preventable serious fault on a PV installation — it is found in seconds with a camera and is otherwise invisible until something burns.
- Is maintenance included after you commission a system?
- Generation checks, warranty claims and diagnosis are included as after-sales on projects I deliver — that is the commitment, and it is answered by the engineer who commissioned the system. Scheduled physical maintenance at industrial scale, meaning planned cleaning cycles and thermal inspection programmes, is a separate arrangement because it involves recurring site work and crew time.
Next step
A site assessment, before anything is quoted
It starts with twelve months of your bills and a visit. If the numbers do not justify the work, that is what I will tell you — and you will have the analysis either way.
Or call 0312 4945198