Run your numbers
Every number on one page.
Run them for your own site — the daily-loss clock, your dispatch trigger, the in-house crew comparison, and the full value breakdown, all updating live from one set of inputs.
At 1 MW, a quiet 75% month costs
$2,958.90
Defaults: a 1 MW site at $0.12/kWh, 1,200 kWh/kW/yr, 100 kW inverters. Change anything — every section below updates.
1 · The clock is ticking on your profit
A problem you sit on bills you every single day.
Owners get a problem, sit on it, and try to figure out who's going to fix it and who's going to pay for it — while the meter keeps running. Every number below calculates live from your inputs.
At your inputs, the site averages 3,287.7 kWh and $394.52 per day — yearly averages; summer days lose more.
Inverter downtime, to the cent
What a down inverter costs while everyone figures out whose problem it is — one 100 kW inverter vs. two.
| Days down | One inverter | Two inverters | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| kWh lost | $ lost | kWh lost | $ lost | |
| 7 | 2,301 kWh | $276.16 | 4,603 kWh | $552.33 |
| 30 | 9,863 kWh | $1,183.56 | 19,726 kWh | $2,367.12 |
| 60 | 19,726 kWh | $2,367.12 | 39,452 kWh | $4,734.25 |
| 90 | 29,589 kWh | $3,550.68 | 59,178 kWh | $7,101.37 |
| 180 | 59,178 kWh | $7,101.37 | 118,356 kWh | $14,202.74 |
Pick your own scenario
1 inverter down for 30 days =9,863 kWhand$1,183.56gone.
Producing 75% of what it can
Performance level × time until someone finds out. A quietly underproducing site still looks fine from the parking lot.
| Performance level | 30 days | 90 days | 6 months | 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | $591.78 | $1,775.34 | $3,600.00 | $7,200.00 |
| 90% | $1,183.56 | $3,550.68 | $7,200.00 | $14,400.00 |
| 75% | $2,958.90 | $8,876.71 | $18,000.00(150,000 kWh) | $36,000.00 |
Running at 75% for six months before anyone finds out = 150,000 kWh and $18,000.00 gone — more than 3.6 years of SolarLink on this site ($4,950/yr).
Six months on the clock
A typical story — an illustration, not data.
Nobody notices. The monthly numbers look a little low — it gets blamed on the weather.
Someone notices. Now: who fixes it — the installer, the O&M contractor, or the manufacturer?
The warranty claim. Who pays? The manufacturer wants evidence.
Waiting on parts.
Repair.
Same problem, with SolarLink + SolarCare
Found on day 1, fixed within 15 days — not six months later. The repair is paid either way; what changes is the production lost while you wait.
The repair — paid either way (example)
Repair costs vary by manufacturer, type of breakdown, equipment age and history, warranty status, parts availability, and site access. Every repair is quoted per job before any work — and only goes ahead if it makes sense under your dispatch trigger.
Without — found at 6 months
$15,702.74
$14,202.74 lost + $1,500.00 repair
Captured with SolarLink — found day 1, fixed by day 15
$2,683.56
$1,183.56 lost + $1,500.00 repair
Saved
$13,019.18
Without — found at 6 months
$20,000.00
$18,000.00 lost + $2,000.00 repair
Captured with SolarLink — found day 1, fixed by day 15
$3,479.45
$1,479.45 lost + $2,000.00 repair
Saved
$16,520.55
The repair costs the same either way — what you save is the production lost while you wait.
Cumulative production lost — one 100 kW inverter, 180 days
The same fault, two outcomes: found on day 15, or found at six months. The mint gap — $6,509.59 — is what catching it early saves.
- Found on day 15
- Saved
- Found at 6 months
Live calculator
Drag the blue line — the numbers follow.
when the fault was found
These are illustrations using yearly averages — actual losses depend on season, site and rate. SREC sites lose more per day. The six-month story is a typical example, not data from a real site. Repair costs vary by manufacturer, type of breakdown, equipment age and history, warranty status, parts availability, and site access. Every repair is quoted per job before any work — and only goes ahead if it makes sense under your dispatch trigger.
2 · Set your dispatch trigger
You decide when it's worth a truck roll.
Three steps: what's wrong, what the fix costs, and your rule. SolarCare only dispatches when your own math says it pays.
How much is this repair worth to you?
$2,801
net over 90 days at these inputs
When was its value last calculated?
Right now
recalculated live — $39.45 a day while it sits
How do you know when not making a move is hurting your bottom line?
−$39.45
every day, measured against your own dispatch rule
What does every day of waiting — on a warranty response, a callback, a meeting — cost you?
−$1,183.56
a month — the meter runs while you decide
Step 1 · What's wrong?
Assumes about 10 inverters on site — each one carries roughly 10% of production.
This is costing you $39.45 a day.
Step 2 · What will the fix cost?
Repair costs vary by manufacturer, type of breakdown, equipment age and history, warranty status, parts availability, and site access. Every repair is quoted per job before any work — and only goes ahead if it makes sense under your dispatch trigger.
Step 3 · Your rule
More rule options
The verdict
Dispatch — pays for itself in 19 days
Safety issues — ground faults, arc faults, fire risk, damaged equipment, security — are dispatched immediately, no matter your trigger.
Your rule: pays back within 30 days · min 1× return. Illustrations — SREC and higher-rate sites hit their trigger sooner.
See examples
Worked examples — 1 MW, $0.12/kWh, 1,200 kWh/kW/yr
Example repair costs shown per row · 90-day horizon · default trigger: pays back within 30 days · min 1× return
| The problem | Repair (example) | Daily loss | Pays back in | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two inverters down | $750.00 | $78.90/day | 9.5 days | Dispatch |
| One inverter down — in warranty | $750.00 | $39.45/day | 19 days | Dispatch |
| One 100 kW inverter out of warranty — replacement ($0.25/W) | $25,000.00 | $39.45/day | 634 days (~1.7 years) | Replace — a dead inverter never fixes itself; pays back in about 1.7 years, then it's all yours |
| Site at 75% of expected (25% loss) | $750.00 | $98.63/day | 7.6 days | Dispatch |
| 3% production loss | $750.00 | $11.84/day | 63 days | Your call |
| 1% soiling | $750.00 | $3.95/day | 190 days | Wait / bundle |
In-house crew vs. SolarCare
You may already have a maintenance team. What is it really costing you?
Two technicians, a truck, and test gear — priced line by line at market rates. Every input is editable, and the per-kW comparison recalculates as you type.
Your crew, your numbers
Edit any line — the receipt and per-kW view recalculate live.
Defaults assume a minimum safe crew of 2 technicians at market rates — a single technician alone can't safely service commercial sites.
The in-house receipt
BLS median pay, solar PV installers, May 2025. Electricians' median: $63,190.
BLS: benefits are 30% of total compensation for private industry, June 2026 — vacation, holidays, sick leave, health insurance, retirement, Social Security/Medicare, unemployment and workers' comp.
AAA 2025, half-ton crew-cab pickup ownership: depreciation, finance, insurance, registration — before fuel and maintenance. Commercial auto insurance alone averages about $2,228/yr per pickup (MoneyGeek 2026).
IV curve tracer kit list price — IR camera, meters, PPE and tools extra.
Before fuel, maintenance, training/certifications (OSHA), scheduling and dispatch, supervision, drone/IR gear, hiring and turnover.
Most private-industry workers get 10–14 vacation days after 1 year (BLS), plus holidays and sick days — you pay whether or not anything breaks.
Per-kW view
SolarLink's $4.95/kW covers monitoring — on-call SolarCare services are added only when the data says they're needed.
A full outsourced O&M program benchmarks around $19–21 per kW DC/yr (NREL ATB 2024). A 2-person in-house crew only reaches that level at about 8.5 MW.
An in-house crew can make sense for large portfolios. Below that, you're paying for a truck, a crew and their time off — whether or not anything breaks.
Repairs and parts are extra in both cases.
- · BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Solar PV Installers
- · BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026
- · AAA Your Driving Costs, 2025
- · MoneyGeek Commercial Auto Insurance, 2026
- · BLS paid vacation benefits
- · NREL Annual Technology Baseline (ATB), 2024
These are estimates — your costs will vary by state and crew. Wages, benefits and insurance differ by market, and the crew size your sites actually need may differ from the 2-technician default.
4 · The full value breakdown
Every line, to the cent.
Per day, per month, over 20 years — plus the production increase ladder, the 1% building block, and the value of the added production if you sell or refinance.
Every increase starts with an evaluation
Before we can promise any percentage, we go out, determine what's wrong, whether it can be fixed, and what the system can realistically deliver — and we only recommend improvements where the return is worth the investment. We don't promise to fix every system; we tell you which ones are worth it.
What +5% production looks like on a 1 MW site
Itemized live from your inputs — every line, to the cent.
Per day
Per month
Per year
Over 20 years
Repairs are separate (see below) — never a made-up yearly number subtracted here.
Repairs are quoted per job and paid with or without SolarLink — the difference is how much production stays uncaptured before the fix. Each repair only goes ahead if it pays for itself under your dispatch trigger. Repair costs vary by manufacturer, type of breakdown, equipment age and history, warranty status, parts availability, and site access — see The clock is ticking for the honest with-vs-without math.
Every 1% more production
Each 1% more production on a 1 MW site:
Every capture scenario is built from this block — stack as many percent as your site can realistically capture.
One missed fault
A single 100 kW inverter down for 41 days, unnoticed — at your inputs:
One catch ≈ 32% of a year of SolarLink on this site — about a third, from a single fault.
The repair costs the same either way — what you save is the production lost while you wait.
Production increase ladder
Same site, different production increases — from covering SolarLink exactly to capturing the average site's uncaptured production.
+3.44% covers SolarLink exactly. Repairs are quoted per job and paid with or without SolarLink — what SolarLink changes is how much production stays uncaptured before the fix.
The +8.6% rung is the average site's uncaptured production (kWh Analytics, 2015–2023 data), shown if fully captured.
Sensitivity — months for SolarLink to pay back
Revenue rate across the top, production increase down the side. Your inputs are outlined: $0.12/kWh × 5% — 8.3 months at your 1,200 kWh/kW/yr yield.
Click any cell for the plain-English story. Payback = SolarLink cost ÷ monthly value of the recovered production. Deeper blue = faster payback.
Every increase starts with an evaluation
Before we can promise any percentage, we go out, determine what's wrong, whether it can be fixed, and what the system can realistically deliver — and we only recommend improvements where the return is worth the investment. We don't promise to fix every system; we tell you which ones are worth it.
Break-even — the recovery that pays for SolarLink
Move the blue marker — any production increase past the break-even line is net value. At your inputs that line sits at +3.44%.
- Value of recovered production ($/yr)
- SolarLink cost ($/yr)
Added production value
$7,200/yr
SolarLink cost
$4,950/yr
Net
+$2,250/yr
Why use SolarCare to get there: software alone shows you the data — reaching break-even takes someone to find what's wrong and fix what pays. We do the analysis every month, dispatch only when your own rule says it pays, and keep pushing you past break-even instead of just measuring it.
Every increase starts with an evaluation
Before we can promise any percentage, we go out, determine what's wrong, whether it can be fixed, and what the system can realistically deliver — and we only recommend improvements where the return is worth the investment. We don't promise to fix every system; we tell you which ones are worth it.
Inspections
Get ahead of the curve — don't ride it.
36% better
Sites inspected quarterly showed a 36% improvement over sites inspected once a year.
Source: Raptor Maps Global Solar Report 2026 (2025 data)
79% missed
Thermal imaging alone misses most risky connector and fuse problems: 79% of high-risk connector and fuse issues show no detectable heat signature.
Source: kWh Analytics Solar Risk Assessment 2026
50–70%
Inverters cause roughly half to 70% of O&M failure events and are typically budgeted for replacement around years 10–12.
Source: NREL; Kiwa; E3 (2025)
~48% of losses
In 2025, string and combiner faults caused about 48% of lost production across U.S. sites (average loss 5.08%, about $5,070 per MW).
Source: Raptor Maps 2026
See how we inspect — and whether your site is quarterly or annual
Your numbers, your call.
When the math says a truck roll pays, you'll know it — and so will we.
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