Solar Inspection Deliverable Template

What the template covers

Aerial thermal inspection reports vary enormously in usefulness. Two reports on the same array can both be technically correct and only one of them can be acted on. This template is the structure we use, laid out so you can hold any vendor's deliverable — ours included — against it.

• Site and survey metadata. Date, conditions, irradiance context and equipment, because a thermal result read without conditions is not interpretable.
• Anomaly classification. A defined severity scheme so "hot spot" means the same thing on every row, and findings can be triaged rather than read one by one.
• Per-string and per-module findings. Anomalies tied to a location your O&M team can navigate to, not just marked on an image.
• Thermal evidence per finding. The radiometric image the classification came from, so a reviewer can check the call.
• Site summary and prioritised actions. The one page a manager reads: how many findings, of which classes, and what to do first.
• Scope and limitation statement. What the survey did not cover and what conditions constrained it.

The template is aligned to IEC 61724-3 reporting practice for photovoltaic system performance assessment. It is a structure to specify against, not a certification — use it to write your RFQ and to check what comes back.

Who it is for

Asset managers and O&M leads accepting an inspection deliverable, EPCs writing an inspection scope, and owners comparing quotes where the reports underneath are not comparable. If you are specifying a first thermal inspection on an Alberta array, start here rather than with a vendor's sample.

More on how the flights themselves run: solar farm drone inspections, the solar industry overview, and a worked example in our thermal anomaly case study.