Trust the industry leader in service to protect your investment

Superior Service for Power Plants

Risk-sharing scenarios:

Service solutions tailored to suit your business model

We understand that not every plant owner and operator have the same service capabilities. SMA’s risk sharing scenarios are alternative options that allow plant owners and operators to choose what level of support they need, including self-performance if desired. This maximizes the unique business models of our customers.

Each risk sharing scenario includes variances in:

  • Warranty length

  • Spare parts availability

  • Repair costs

  • Preventative maintenance

  • Plant-wide operations and maintenance

Grid Emulation™ and commissioning

Accelerate your business, mitigate risk

SMA offers a first-of-its-kind service called Grid Emulation™ that offers its partners the unique ability to significantly pull forward their commercial operation dates.

Through the use of proprietary technology, SMA can simulate the grid prior to actual grid interconnection and fully test and pre-commission the complete power path from DC to the inverter to AC. Proven on the largest plants in the world, Grid Emulation is a game changer in the way large-scale PV plants are tested and brought online.

The benefit of Grid Emulation is obvious-it arms developers and EPCs with the ability to accelerate commissioning, providing a dependable defense against project delays.

Whether it’s to mitigate risk, avoid liquidated damages due to project delays or realize greater profit from project completion ahead of schedule, SMA Grid Emulation can greatly influence project success-increasing profitability in ways other services simply can’t match.

Success begins with the essentials

Before a PV power plant can start earning returns, it needs to produce power. Commissioning, often overlooked or oversimplified, is absolutely critical to maximizing project velocity and project profitability. SMA’s global team of field service engineers—the largest in the PV industry —is available when needed and provides the industry’s most thorough commissioning process. With more than 100 inverter and system checks during the commissioning process, we make sure your SMA inverters are electrically and mechanically sound and ready for optimum performance.

Through unmatched experience, SMA has redefined the commissioning process for large-scale PV plants, which helps our partners finish on time or ahead of required commercial operation dates.

The SMA Commissioning process is one of the many reasons the world’s largest developers trust SMA for their most critical, time-sensitive projects. No one does it safer, faster or with more precision.

Preventative Maintenance and extended warranty

Vital care to achieve outstanding reliability

With SMA Preventative Maintenance, plant owners benefit from a program that fits seamlessly with plant-level O&M plans. It is based on experienced field service engineers who apply the latest techniques and training to keep the inverters running at optimal levels, often in challenging environments

During annual service appointments, SMA experts perform a comprehensive 20-point inspection, which includes 17 functional tests. A careful fault history analysis is completed and maintenance is carried out to proactively eliminate a potential reduction in performance.

A detailed report documents the process and provides the operator with an annual device history.

Proactive preventative maintenance is a proven success factor in maximizing a PV plant’s availability, and no one is more capable to perform this essential task on SMA inverters than our field service experts. We aren’t just confident in our team’s ability to maximize your plant’s performance, we guarantee it.

Customized options for optimal risk sharing

Building PV power plants is about minimizing risk and maximizing profit. This usually requires guarantees from many parties along the project development value chain—but all guarantees are not equal. SMA offers a comprehensive, flexible extended warranty plan that provides the outstanding assurances needed to secure funding and execute operationally —and it comes from a solutions provider with unmatched experience, excellent financials and a core focus on the PV industry.

The SMA Extended Warranty protects against unforeseen costs from electrical or mechanical issues that may arise over the life of your PV plant. What’s more, SMA understands that every plant operator has a unique business model and is prepared to take on a varied level of service responsibility. That’s why we offer customizable service contracts where the customer chooses the depth of labor and materials obligations they are willing to take on as well as options for spare parts agreements. This results in the most cost-effective service strategy for every customer, no matter their size, experience or service capabilities.

Plant-wide operations and maintenance

Rely on SMA for long-term success

Our team of electrical engineers, solar professionals and critical support staff provide our partners with the strength and experience of our global service organization. This network of service personnel ensures a plant remains in peak shape and produces reliable power during its operational life. A properly maintained solar plant can increase yield up to 30%, accelerating investment payback. Even the best technology requires someone to look after it. Executing a successful O&M strategy is paramount to the long-term viability (and profitability) of a PV plant. As the largest servicer of solar inverters, SMA is uniquely positioned to offer expert plant-wide O&M services, including array, racking, balance of system and monitoring services.

Available as one of three plans: Preventative, Proactive or Performance, SMA provides world-class O&M services that will increase performance ratios, protect power production and simplify long-term planning.

Our team of electrical engineers, solar professionals and critical support staff provide our partners with the strength and experience of our global service organization. This network of service personnel ensures a plant remains in peak shape and produces reliable power during its operational life. A properly maintained solar plant can increase yield up to 30%, accelerating investment payback.

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Preventative

Our Preventative O&M package includes:

  • Visual inspection of transformers, housing, inverters, wiring, racking and more

  • Annual inverter preventative maintenance

  • Thermal analysis of electrical equipment to identify potential trouble spots

  • Removal of intrusive vegetation and debris in electrical areas

  • Comprehensive maintenance reports

  • Remote system monitoring with 24/7 customer phone support

Proactive

Our Proactive O&M package includes all of the benefits of Preventative plus:

  • DC wiring and electrical equipment maintenance and performance testing

  • Array maintenance

  • Meter troubleshooting and calibration

  • Increased reporting frequency

  • Inspection of alarm events and minor repair

  • Emergency response

  • Spare parts inventory management

  • Warranty administration

​​​​​​​Performance

Our Performance O&M package includes all of the benefits of Preventative and Proactive plus:

  • Performance guarantees

  • Advanced performance reports

Additional Services

  • Array cleaning

  • Plant security

  • Pest management

  • Plant-wide vegetation control

A comprehensive suite of services to support your success

Keeping a pulse on your PV investment

SMA Solar Monitoring Center

To ensure maximum ROI, it is important to have a watchful and proactive eye on your investment. In addition to our superior inverter technology, at SMA we utilize advanced, real-time remote monitoring capabilities to ensure your system continues to perform as expected, keeping your revenue growth on track.

Manned by the world’s #1 service team, our unique Solar Monitoring Center uses state-of-the-art technology to analyze performance, detect potential issues, and resolve matters remotely or dispatch field service engineers to get your system back on track quickly. With the ability to manage maintenance schedules as well as track and report on warranty claims and financial information, our Solar Monitoring Center services allow you to spend less time gathering information and more time executing on strategic decisions.

First-level support training from SMA’s central inverter experts

SMA Solar Academy

SMA understands our customers’ need to drive down operational costs wherever possible. Our first-level support training is designed to do exactly that, empowering your service personnel to perform maintenance on SMA central inverters. SMA Solar Academy trainers will conduct thorough curriculum over several days covering everything from electrical safety to extensive hands-on exercises.

First-level support training is available to select SMA customers who meet prerequisite conditions. Please contact your account representative to discuss how we can support your PV portfolio.

Our commitment to your profitability

Inverter Availability Guarantee

SMA’s field-proven service strategy has been crafted to maximize the ROI of your PV plant, and we stand behind that pledge. Our inverter availability guarantee provides the next-level of investment security and peace of mind for plant owners by committing to a predetermined metric for inverter availability.

Contact your sales representative to learn more about our inverter availability guarantees and how SMA can build an agreement that gives you maximum assurance in equipment reliability.

Breathe new life into distressed PV plants

Repowering Solutions

Owners and operators anticipate their PV power plants will perform as expected for the duration of the plant's lifetime. If they do not, financial returns suffer and can put the health of the investment at risk. Underperformance can be caused by a variety of factors including but not limited to:

  • Substandard installation practices

  • Insufficient O&M

  • Panel degradation

  • Low inverter efficiency in legacy products

  • Low availability of replacement components

Luckily, SMA's Repowering experts can identify and rectify the root causes of poor performance and get your PV plant back on the road to profitability.

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