#1 Troubleshooting vs. Root Cause Analysis
Go fast or Go deep - something school can't teach you
Working on operating solar plants, we often face challenges that require both quick thinking and long-term solutions. But are we just patching up issues, or are we preventing them from clouding our future performance? The million euro/dollar question everyone in O&M and Asset Management want a answer to.
If you ask most people in O&M what is troubleshooting and what is root-cause analysis, highly likely their answer will include a bit of both, depending on their experience. The mindset in O&M is to maximize your first fix rates and to secure long term operation. Sounds like a mix of both right ?
Let's shed some light on the two approaches in solar operations:
Troubleshooting in Solar Operations
✅ Focus: Immediate power restoration
⏱️ Timeframe: Short-term, often same-day or same week
🎯 Goal: Minimize downtime and Remove risks
🔍 Scope: Addresses symptoms (e.g., faulty inverter)
🚑 Approach: Reactive, on-site fixes
In short you function in firefighter mode, with little time to turn the problem on each side and analyze. Plus, you will likely face several trouble shootings per day.
At first, don’t be surprised it takes a while. We will go deeper in a next post on how to do it, but the main points to consider as you dive into O&M are :
Document yourself - READ the F***ING MANUAL : all the info is out there and most is FREE. Next year 2025, I will publish my library of books, articles, manuals and white papers
Start slow - You’re building a muscle, so you can’t go fast. It’s NORMAL and you need not set too high expectations.
Be the apprentice - Troubleshooting is closer to old trade guild practices than any other skill. Find a Master, tag along, support them and milk every inch of know-how until you can feel comfortable on your own feet.
Remember that troubleshooting is something that you’re likely to be in the first responder position so ramping up requires athlete level practice. Claim your practice space and time. More on that will follow in this series
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in Solar Plants
✅ Focus: Identifying underlying issues in the system
⏱️ Timeframe: Long-term, may take weeks
🎯 Goal: Optimize long-term performance
🔍 Scope: Addresses fundamental causes (e.g., inverter failure due to overheating)
🔬 Approach: Systematic, involves data analysis and testing
With RCA, the mindset is more of a scientist, or rather a research team.
Root Cause Analysis is a long-term TEAM EFFORT
Depending on the nature of the problem, your role in the business but also the place your employer/business has in the ecosystem, it will influence how deep and how diligent you must be with your root-cause analysis.
Before we dive deeper later into deep diving RCA, my immediate takes on it are:
Don’t confuse it with troubleshooting - It sounds like a broken record but the mindset is so different that transferring it from troubleshooting can give bad results.
Gather a team with diverse views and stakes - Bias and not going deep enough is your worst enemy, that’s why you can’t do this alone. Everyone is biased, especially if you have ownership of the system or you will take ownership of the corrective action. Have people that can challenge assumptions, that are not afraid of thinking outside of the box and very important, people who can put in the time as it takes several iterations
Use a methodology - Now RCA is something that can be taught through training or even in school. There are at least 5 of them, starting with the basic yet powerful 5 Whys and then going to more advanced methods such as Failure Mode Analysis or Fishbone Diagram. The team that is usually expected to perform this as diverse as their contributions should be, the method needs to be well known and practiced.
The main take-away is that with RCA you’re solving a business level problem, and this by definition has wide implications, most of them unforeseen not even by the most veteran colleagues. Some of the most common conclusions are:
Service Operating procedures must be changed or completely reworked
Initial design was flawed and expensive upgrades are needed
The equipment has a manufacturing/ design issue so a recall or a retrofit is necessary, which is a massive endeavor
Let’s Recap!
While troubleshooting keeps plants up and running with the sun shining, RCA ensures they'll continue to run in the future as it was designed to.
Effective problem-solving in solar plants often involves both: troubleshooting to keep the electrons flowing, and then conducting RCA to maximize long-term energy harvesting.
Remember: A quick fix might save today's kilowatt-hours, but understanding the root cause optimizes your entire solar operation for years to come.
Comment TROUBLESHOOTING if that's your daily activity.
Comment ROOT-CAUSE ANALYSIS if you're called upon to do this more often
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