Path-Q Solar

How can a business compare solar proposals that use different treatment of downtime?

Answer

Normalize each proposal to the same downtime definition and compare both expected annual production and the financial consequences of outages.

Key points

  • Separate planned downtime, equipment failure, grid outage, curtailment, maintenance, and weather-related losses.
  • Determine whether downtime is included in the production estimate, excluded from a guarantee, or covered by a service commitment.
  • Compare guaranteed output, response times, restoration targets, exclusions, and any outage-related business impact.

What it depends on

  • The proposal's production model and guarantee
  • System ownership, monitoring, and maintenance responsibilities
  • The business's cost of lost production or interrupted operations

Risks and trade-offs

  • A higher production estimate may simply exclude more downtime.
  • A broad availability promise may have exclusions that limit practical protection.
  • Paying for stronger service coverage may be worthwhile where interruption costs are high.

Information you may need

  • Downtime categories and hours assumed by each proposal
  • Production guarantee calculation and exclusions
  • Service response and restoration commitments
  • The business's value of avoided or lost energy

Your next step

What to do next

Create a side-by-side schedule using one downtime definition and ask each proposer to recalculate output and financial results on that basis.

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SQ02106