Although long-term solar hardware costs have plummeted, the rise in recent solar project costs is driven primarily by rising interest rates, which increase the cost of financing capital-heavy installations. Lenders have grown more conservative, change order tolerance has narrowed and yield shortfalls that might once have been absorbed are now threatening project viability. In this environment, the industry’s oldest lesson carries more weight than ever: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
That axiom sounds simple. Living it requires discipline at every stage of a project’s life, from the first geotechnical boring to the last repowering assessment. The field evidence shows that issues caught in design are inexpensive to resolve, but the same issues discovered during commissioning or operation are not. Costs amplify as a defect travels downstream. When compounded with lost generation and potential shortfall penalties they can quickly erode the project economics.
The cost curve of deferred discovery
Engineering studies are relatively inexpensive, while construction fixes can be 10-times more. Commissioning-stage corrections can be even more expensive compared to the original design cost. And operational failures can translate into millions of dollars in lost revenue, refinancing disruption and warranty disputes.
For example, during a competitive bid for a 100-MW project, a tracker vendor won on price, and then failed to color-code pile components to distinguish between simple piles and motor piles. The EPC installed all piles without regard to positioning, built the trackers on top of the error, and was forced to reverse course entirely. This resulted in more than $10 million in remediation costs and seven months of schedule slip. A quality control step, that would have cost next to nothing in design review, became one of the most expensive oversights on the project.
The principle is not just about hardware labeling. It is about the structural reality that defects compound. A flaw in design becomes a rework problem in construction, a retest problem in commissioning, and a revenue loss problem in operation. At each stage, the cost multiplier grows.
Design phase: Where assumptions become risk
Often the costliest PV projects are the ones that look easy. A site that appears topographically uniform invites assumptions, such as wider-spaced geotechnical borings, less rigorous wind modeling, faster movement to construction. Those assumptions, if wrong, can become structural liabilities.
On the geotechnical side, heterogeneous soils beneath what appears to be a uniform site can cause pile refusal rates as high as 50%. That kind of discovery mid-construction draws immediate scrutiny from lenders and independent engineers, triggers retrofits and alignment corrections, increases maintenance load and can causes problems warranty issues with equipment vendors.
Construction oversight: Quality governance as a business practice
Good design, poorly executed, is still a bad outcome. Construction oversight and quality assurance/quality control (QAQC) represent the second line of defense.
What distinguishes effective construction QAQC from checkbox compliance is consistency, standardization and documentation. Digitized inspection regimes allow EPCs and owners to catch issues in real time, document them with the specificity needed for warranty enforcement, and resolve them before they propagate. The cultural dimension matters too: when QAQC is transparent and consistently applied, it signals to the entire project team that quality governance is non-negotiable.
Warranty protection depends on it. If a structural or electrical failure occurs post-COD and the owner cannot demonstrate that installation followed specification, the path to recovery through vendor warranties narrows considerably. Thorough commissioning documentation, grid compliance verification, and disciplined turnover records provide financial protection.
Operations: Proactive management in a tighter market
Once a project reaches commercial operation, the driver of long-term success shifts to asset management. Rising capital costs and tighter margins mean there is less tolerance than ever for yield shortfalls or unplanned expenses. A thorough and timely handoff procedure from the EPC to asset manager, including comprehensive warranty packages, spare part inventories, design and as-built drawings, and all QAQC observations and actions set the project up for long-term success. Proactive performance monitoring identifies underperformance quickly, diagnoses root causes accurately and allows operators to implement corrective actions before revenue impact accumulates.
The project lifecycle perspective matters. Owners who operate only at a single project stage see data points. Those who connect design, construction and operations see patterns. Those patterns provide invaluable data for long-term decision making, capital deployment, and operational efficiency.
Repowering: Extending asset life in an evolving market
As the first large wave of utility-scale solar projects ages, repowering is next. Technology has continued to advance since many of these projects were built. Module efficiency has improved, inverter technology has evolved and grid interconnection requirements have shifted. The question is no longer whether repowering is feasible, but instead when it makes economic sense and how to execute without compromising existing production commitments or financing structures.
Owners who built with documentation discipline (i.e. accurate as-built records, warranty files, performance histories, etc.) are better positioned to evaluate repowering options and execute them efficiently. Those who did not have a harder road. If a project owner doesn’t have the in-house resources to manage these elements, third-party asset managers specialize in this.
The long view
The renewable energy projects being designed and built today need to perform not just for their first PPA term, but for the decades beyond. That requires a mindset shift from transactional execution to lifecycle stewardship and treating every design review, every inspection, every performance report as a contribution to a project’s long-term value.
In the current market, with capital more expensive and margins thinner, there is less room for the errors that a more forgiving environment might have absorbed. The projects that will define the next generation of renewable infrastructure are the ones built with that understanding from Day 1. Discipline in design, rigor in construction and consistency in operations are the foundation of projects built to last.
Erin Kivlehan is senior vice president of asset management at Radian Generation, where she oversees the strategic and operational performance of renewable energy assets across the portfolio. She brings deep expertise in asset optimization, contractual and regulatory compliance, and lifecycle value creation.