Imagine a finely tuned engine that is left without care for months. It begins to run below capacity, struggles under load, develops faults and eventually could suffer a complete breakdown. A solar panel is no different. Even though it continues to silently convert sunlight into electricity, over time, the accumulation of dust and debris, and other environmental factors cause wear and tear, steadily reducing its efficiency. To address these challenges, it is essential for solar power projects to have a robust operations and maintenance (O&M) framework in place.
Idia’s solarwer sector has witnessed rapid growth over the past decade. As of November 30, 2025, the cumulative solar capacity reached about 132.8 GW, constituting nearly 52 per cent of the country’s total renewable capacity. Amid this rapid expansion, large project sizes and the pressure of declining tariffs, effective O&M practices have become critical to sustaining performance standards, maximising returns and ensuring the long-term success of solar projects.
India Infrastructure provides an overview of India’s solar O&M segment, analysing market trends, the evolving operating models, contractual and technology shifts, forecasting and scheduling (F&S) challenges, the impact of digitalisation and the future outlook.
Market trends
Solar O&M has emerged as a key pillar of the solar power ecosystem, largely because solar assets are designed to operate for 25-30 years and their long-term performance depends on how well they are maintained. Inefficient O&M practices can erode performance, leading to annual energy losses of 10-15 per cent due to soiling, component degradation and electrical faults.
From a financial perspective, O&M represents the largest cost component after construction, but it also plays a crucial role in preserving revenue streams. Well-maintained plants are able to retain close to 95 per cent of their original capacity even after two decades of operation, whereas poorly managed assets can see performance drop to below 90 per cent, resulting in substantial cumulative revenue losses over the project lifecycle.
The role of O&M has expanded beyond routine upkeep to structured, technology-enabled asset management, encompassing preventive, condition-based and corrective interventions aimed at preserving performance and limiting degradation. Reflecting this growing importance, PwC estimates that the third-party solar O&M market size will double from around Rs 17 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2025 to Rs 34 billion by FY2030, driven primarily by an increase in operational solar capacity under third-party O&M – from about 48 GW to nearly 98 GW over the same period. As O&M typically accounts for 15-20 per cent of a plant’s lifecycle costs, this growth positions O&M as a multi-billion rupee segment within India’s broader renewable energy transition, especially with the country targeting 280 GW of solar capacity by 2030.
Meanwhile, the structure of the O&M market is expected to evolve. The share of third-party O&M is projected to decline from roughly 45 per cent in FY2025 to about 35 per cent by FY2030, as developers increasingly move towards in-house O&M to gain better cost efficiency, tighter operational control and improved performance visibility. This shift is supported by assumptions that the average O&M cost per MW will fall from around Rs 0.35 million per MW in FY2025 to about Rs 0.3 million per MW by FY2030 – largely due to technology adoption, automation and efficiency improvements. Despite this decline in unit costs, the overall market value will continue to rise because of the rapid growth in installed and operational capacity.
Evolution of the solar O&M market
India’s solar O&M ecosystem is undergoing a fundamental shift as the industry moves away from labour-intensive, cost-driven practices towards digitalised and performance-oriented models. For much of the past decade, O&M activities have been dominated by on-site manpower and routine activities such as module cleaning and vegetation management, which together account for the majority of costs and involve high labour engagement and water consumption. Contracts are largely flat, per-MW arrangements, with operations focused on basic site upkeep rather than performance optimisation.
As the sector matures, the cost mix is expected to change with automation, analytics and digitalisation gaining prominence. Manpower intensity is likely to decline, while technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)-based monitoring, robotic cleaning and drone inspections become integral to operations. O&M contracts are expected to move towards performance-linked and revenue-sharing structures, supported by standard operating procedures (SOPs), defined key performance indicators and stronger service-level agreements.
Meanwhile, the scope of O&M is expanding beyond cleaning and grass cutting to include performance reporting, energy forecasting, outage planning and grid interface management. This shift is reinforced by tighter deviation settlement mechanism (DSM) bands and higher penalties, increasing the need for accurate prediction and data-driven decision-making.
F&S in solar O&M
Accurate F&S of solar generation has become critical as India’s renewable capacity expands and grid operations become more complex. With higher renewable penetration, even small forecasting errors can lead to grid imbalances and financial penalties, turning forecasting into a key operational and commercial risk for solar projects. As highlighted at Renewable Watch’s recent conference on “O&M of Solar Power Plants”, forecasting accuracy and associated DSM penalties vary across states, with aggregation-enabled states (for instance, Karnataka) facing minimal penalties. Regulatory uncertainty and the inherent difficulty in forecasting around 1.5 hours ahead for large solar assets further add to operational complexity, according to Kapil Kumar, Senior Vice-President, Asset Management, BluPine Energy.
Developers strive to minimise penalties, while grid operators manage peak demand uncertainty and variability caused by forecasting errors. Numerical forecasting methods achieve around 92-93 per cent accuracy; yet residual hour-ahead errors persist, making tighter DSM bands challenging without balanced regulations, as per Krishnan Rajagopalan, Head, IPP Business, Jakson Green.
Impact of digitalisation on solar O&M
As solar capacity scales up in size, complexity and geographic spread, O&M is undergoing a fundamental shift from manpower-intensive, reactive practices to data-driven, predictive and technology-enabled models. Digitalisation has emerged as the key enabler of this transition, allowing O&M players to manage large portfolios more efficiently, improve asset performance and optimise costs over the long operating life of solar projects.
As per Anil Pareek, Zonal Head, Solar O&M, Tata Power Renewables, significant improvements have been observed in solar O&M owing to technological advancements and digitalisation. The adoption of virtual string monitoring, AI, digital twins and advanced analytics has enabled faster identification of underperforming zones across large solar parks, significantly reducing manpower dependence. Automation through robotic cleaning, supported by soiling sensors, along with drone-based thermography for fault detection, is further improving operational efficiency and plant performance.
According to P.V.N. Sai, Global Business Head O&M, Sterling & Wilson Renewable Energy, digitalisation has already delivered tangible benefits in solar O&M, with centralised monitoring platforms and data centres enabling real-time oversight of multiple plants and providing a fourth eye on operations, while practical experience shows that effective use of data analytics can lead to measurable improvements, including increases in annual energy production.
Solar power projects are designed for a 25-30-year lifespan, making module quality and O&M practices critical. Modules account for around 55-60 per cent or more of the total plant cost. Thus, manufacturers are focusing on high-quality and emerging technologies. Such components are AI-driven and detect defects, improve yield and reduce inefficiencies, according to Manish Relan, Senior General Manager, Utility Sales, Future Solar.
Key challenges
Despite rapid technological progress, solar O&M continues to face structural, operational and financial challenges that directly affect long-term asset performance and value.
Financial and strategic challenges: Even minor inefficiencies in O&M can lead to disproportionate losses in energy generation, revenues and internal rates of return. Suboptimal maintenance practices accelerate degradation, weaken earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, and erode asset valuation. These risks are amplified when O&M considerations are not integrated at the design and engineering stage, resulting in higher lifecycle costs, poor maintainability and persistent performance issues. The absence of standardised O&M frameworks across portfolios further increases operational inconsistency and financial risk.
Manpower and skill constraints: Utility-scale projects, especially in remote locations, face a shortage of skilled technicians and have high attrition rates, which disrupt operational continuity despite the presence of SOPs and training programmes. As plants grow in size and complexity, demand for specialised skills in data analytics, grid management and predictive maintenance is increasing faster than workforce availability.
Grid-related and operational challenges: Rising renewable energy penetration has intensified issues such as curtailment, transmission bottlenecks and demand-supply mismatches, particularly for interstate projects. These challenges require advanced forecasting, reactive power management and real-time coordination with grid operators. SCADA reliability has become a critical concern, especially for GW-scale plants where system failures can impact both plant output and grid stability.
Asset ageing and technology risks: Inverter obsolescence, limited vendor support, inadequate spare parts availability and rapid technology transitions create uncertainty in lifecycle management. Fault detection across large DC systems remains challenging, while geographical factors such as soil conditions, salinity, extreme weather and vegetation growth restrict uniform automation. Module-related issues arising from improper handling during transportation, storage, or installation can lead to micro-cracks, hot spots and loose connections, which worsen over time, if not detected early.
The way forward
As India’s solar fleet scales, O&M must shift from routine upkeep to structured, technology-led asset management. Embedding O&M at the design stage, defining SOPs and strengthening SCADA reliability are critical to sustaining performance and asset value. Wider adoption of AI-driven monitoring, predictive analytics, drones and robotic cleaning will reduce manpower dependence, limit degradation and minimise unplanned outages at scale.
At the same time, stronger forecasting, interoperable data platforms and selective storage integration are needed to manage DSM risks and grid complexity. Addressing skill gaps; managing equipment obsolescence, especially inverters; and improving domestic supply chains will further enhance long-term resilience.
Net, net, a data-driven, performance- linked O&M framework will be key to maximising returns and ensuring the reliability of the country’s solar assets over their full lifecycle.
Sakshi Bansal
