It’s hard to believe that 2023 is nearly over. SolarGrade, our fieldwork management platform for clean energy assets, has advanced dramatically since last year: we’ve issued more than 20 new versions of SolarGrade software, and we nearly doubled our userbase and the headcount of our software development team.
From UX improvements to rich new features, our software is now an even more valuable tool for clean energy EPCs, O&M providers, asset owners, and off-takers. We’ve come so far in 2023 that it’s hard to remember what SolarGrade could do only twelve months ago.
As we wrap up the year, we want to highlight the top three new features that proved to be extremely powerful for our customers and partners:
- Data Exports
- Map View
- Report Customization
SolarGrade Data Exports
SolarGrade organizes the data collected by on-the-ground technicians when they visit clean energy assets. It replaces messy, inconsistent O&M logs and construction progress reports with a clean database of PV health datapoints that asset managers can analyze easily.
This year, we gave SolarGrade users the ability to export data from site visits as CSV files and build their own analyses of PV project and fleet health. Asset managers can leverage SolarGrade datasets to:
- Analyze the volume and severity of issues across different projects and entire flights.
- Track and monitor issue resolution rates over time.
- Correlate specific quality issues with different teams – and then assign training as appropriate.
- Compare issues rates across different types of equipment and manufacturers.
To see how powerful this data is, check out the SolarGrade PV Health Report.
Map View
When we first developed SolarGrade, our mobile app focused on standardizing checklists for site visits and streamlining documentation. In the field, users used SolarGrade to walk through a specific workflow line-by-line, inspecting equipment and taking pictures as they worked.
Yet our checklist-driven notebook view felt limiting to some users, especially experienced PV system inspectors. We introduced Map View so that users can walk a site freestyle, at their own speed, and tag issues directly from the map by dropping a pin.
Map View allows users to rapidly copy and geo-locate systemic issues across an entire site instead of methodically moving through a list line by line. In some cases, we recommend that users switch between Notebook and Map Views in a single inspection to ensure they work efficiently without missing a step.
Report Customization
Report automation is central to the value of SolarGrade. Our one-click reporting saves technicians time, improves accuracy, and reduces administrative costs. Many SolarGrade users provide technical advisory services, and their reports are critical to client communications. It’s important that every include all the right details without extraneous fluff. Plus, no one likes sending reports without their logo!
Our report customization tool allows users to generate interactive on-brand reports that are packed with useful data. Users can select exactly which sections of the inspection they wish to include or strike. This feature ensures that every SolarGrade report is meaningful to its audience.
What’s Next
2024 is right around the corner, and our team is already building a new release packed with features that make SolarGrade even better – both for workers in the field and asset managers in the office.
Ready to give SolarGrade a try?