In January 2025, our operations and maintenance (O&M) team was asked to take over a 326 kWp grid-tied rooftop solar site that was barely limping along. The system had been underperforming for months, producing just 17% of its expected output in December 2024. Municipal electricity bills were piling up, with savings nowhere in sight. No one could say when the site had last received proper maintenance.
The real issue? The owner had no way of knowing how badly the system was performing until the electricity bills started hurting. With no working data communications link and no live performance data, the only indicator was cost - an after-the-fact and expensive way to discover there’s a problem.
By June, things looked very different. Solar output had surged by more than 85%. Monthly energy costs had dropped by over R70,000. And in May, the site became a net exporter of energy for the first time.
The site had been completely turned around - but it didn’t happen by accident.
When our team first arrived on site in January, it was clear something had gone wrong. The plant had been commissioned without proper handover documentation. Key inverters were offline. The communications infrastructure was failing, which meant we couldn’t see what was happening across the system in real time. There was no maintenance log, no fault record, and no site maintenance strategy.
Our first job was to restore performance visibility. We fixed the communications link, brought inverters back online, and then assessed every component of the system. We also built a site-specific maintenance and resolution plan from scratch.
Once we understood the site’s true condition, we did what we always do: we rolled up our sleeves and got to work on the fundamentals. That meant cleaning, inspecting, testing, tightening, replacing worn components, and building up a reliable performance baseline. Because component-level mapping and labelling had never been properly completed or had been lost, fault finding required painstaking attention to detail - every optimiser and circuit had to be manually checked and verified to ensure it was correctly connected and functioning.
It also meant ongoing digital system monitoring and daily checks. By quickly identifying new or recurring faults, we kept the site stable and steadily pushed generation higher.
And just as important: our clients now get clear, regular performance reporting. So if something ever starts slipping again, they’ll know long before the next electricity bill arrives.
The results speak for themselves. Between January and June 2025, performance improved by 85%. Energy costs dropped by more than R369,000 in total. And for the first time, the system started putting energy back into the grid.
Godfree Mapande, who leads Decentral’s Operations & Maintenance Management, puts it simply:
“There’s a deep satisfaction in taking a sad, underperforming system and making it sing again. These kinds of jobs are tough, but they bring out the best in our team - and they prove the difference that good O&M can make.”
Today, Decentral manages over 140 solar commercial and industrial systems across South Africa. We own about half of them ourselves, while third-party owners and institutional investors trust us with the rest. That trust is built on results like these - and on the consistent, transparent performance we deliver every day.
This site is not unique. Across South Africa, many solar systems fall short of their potential because of poor commissioning, weak documentation, or a lack of proper O&M support. At Decentral, we are developing a speciality in recovering these under performing assets - and making them shine again.
We can even takeover ownership of the system, freeing up capital for your core business. You simply pay for the energy it produces - reliably, and under a performance guarantee.
If you’re managing a system that isn’t meeting expectations, we’d love to help. Email us at info@decentral.co.za or give us a call on +27 (0) 11 568 4993.
