Why partner with Black & Veatch for your asset Operations & Maintenance (O&M)?
Asset owners have many things on their minds. Managing safety, reliability and cost is always at the top.
Hundreds of decisions must be made every day. Making the right ones for operations and maintenance (O&M) are crucial for hitting big picture goals. This task becomes more challenging when O&M is rarely an owner’s core business and needs a talent and staffing structure that doesn’t always grow as their business does.
Whether you own an aging power plant facing ambitious decarb goals, a solar field demanding dispersed maintenance, or a manufacturing plant that needs reliable operations, Black & Veatch can help.
Our data-driven O&M program is supported by a full in-house suite of resources, offering a single point of contact to a workforce nationwide. With experience that runs the full project lifecycle and in every corner of infrastructure, chances are we’ve designed and built it before, no matter what industry you’re in.
Let us help you manage what matters most. We’ll take care of your assets and provide the cost and time savings that come with 100+ years of engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) experience.
Quick Troubleshooting Unlike our competitors, our O&M services connects you to a world-class EPC firm. Our experience, from pre-design to maintenance, means we can solve issues quickly. We design and build critical infrastructure assets, so if there’s an issue, we have the expertise, tools and relationships to fix it.
Maximized ROI Get the most out of your capital and O&M investments by optimizing reliability, efficiency and safety. BV can help you right-size maintenance activities and provides data-driven monitoring to keep things running smoothly.
Enhanced Visibility Online dashboards give clients line of sight to asset performance and maintenance of their assets.
What is included in our O&M solution?
Our Operations & Maintenance services are tailored to your needs and can include everything up to total care and custody of your asset. From distributed asset portfolios, solar O&M, or plant maintenance, we can be your provider of choice. Our solution includes: Multi-Year Service Contract
Care, Custody, & Control of Asset
On-Site Staffing
Safety Program and Processes
Work Management
Operating Processes & Procedures
Site-Specific Training
Regulatory Compliance & Support
Comprehensive O&M Reporting
Data Analytics/Monitoring and Diagnostics
Preventative Maintenance
Corrective Maintenance
Inventory / Spares Management
Operating Plans
Maintenance Plans
Turnkey solutions
Distributed Asset Programs For distributed assets, this list extends and includes:
Remote operation and control
Monitoring and analytics
Traditional Asset O&M
O&M of large, centralized assets is no small task, and our offering provides practical solutions for today and scalable solutions for tomorrow. We address issues at a clients’ pace with staged implementation and evolving programs, ensuring you have the basics covered while we work with you to build the ultimate program that you want.
Plant Maintenance
Plant maintenance is key to the longevity of these assets. In traditional plant settings, analytics allows our team to anticipate failure and get ahead of it. It also helps to avoid forced outages and maintain an efficient maintenance spend. Check out this example of how our data team helped save a holiday with targeted maintenance at a fertilizer plant: Good Finds: Filter Plugging Event | Black & Veatch (bv.com).
Distributed Infrastructure and Solar O&M
Managing distributed assets comes with its own unique set of challenges. The solar industry, in particular places a high value on proper O&M for these assets. The U.S. Department of Energy acknowledges the importance of regular O&M in optimizing performance of solar systems. According to the NREL, optimizing solar O&M costs is also important for leveling costs of the generation source as a whole. Costs vary widely, with many of those changes due to scale, climate, and site selection.
What are the components of a solar operations and maintenance program?
The solar program O&M components require action and insight. They include:
Preventative and corrective maintenance activities
Reaction time that makes sense from an ROI perspective – does the increased productivity (and profitability) of an underperforming panel outweigh the cost of a truck roll)
Structural and vegetation management
A distributed energy or solar portfolio that has a strong O&M program benefits from maximized production (and high availability) and streamlined cost.
For distributed assets, like solar or battery energy storage programs, this service helps manage the unique challenges that come with geographically dispersed assets with razor-thin margins and strict reliability requirements. Data analytics helps owners detect issues before they become big problems, prioritize field responses, balance the costs and benefits of maintenance activities, and generate the greatest returns on investment (ROI). Learn more about how this O&M model can manage these assets by reading our latest eBook: 4 Ways to optimize Distributed Energy Assets with Data-Driven O&M | Black & Veatch (bv.com)
Case Studies
Bank Rooftop Solar Asset Monitoring & Maintenance
A national bank hired Black & Veatch to deploy a rooftop solar program that integrates a full turnkey solution including project development, engineering, utility coordination, permitting, installation, and asset management of the completed systems. The overall program totals approximately 1,000 sites and approximately 30 MWdc.
Public Utility Long-Term Service Agreement
An electricity public utility hired Black & Veatch to perform ongoing maintenance services at two Battery Energy Storage Stations totaling over 35 MWs. Our team works with internal experts, the EPC, and equipment OEM’s to resolve plant issues not covered by the EPC warranty. We dispatch the correct resources to fix any issues that arise, and make sure the stations are available for dispatch.
