Solar PV Inspection for O&M Contractors: Independent Certified Surveys
The Level 3 Thermography Arm You Do Not Have to Employ
Drone Media Imaging works as the certified inspection subcontractor for solar O&M contractors, asset managers and EPCs across the UK. You hold the client relationship and the maintenance contract; we provide the IEC 62446-3 thermographic survey and ITC Level III analysis your client's insurer wants to see from an independent party. Delivered to your programme, reported in a form you can present.
The Level 3 Thermography Arm You Do Not Have to Employ
You maintain the array. That is exactly the problem the thermographic inspection creates for you, and it is not a reflection on the quality of your work.
IEC 62446-3 states that where the purpose of an inspection is fire prevention, the testing personnel should be independent of the owner or operator. Your client’s insurer, or their risk surveyor, may well know that. So the survey you are perfectly capable of arranging is the one survey your own organisation cannot give the client full value from, however competently it is carried out.
Bringing in a certified third party solves it cleanly. Drone Media Imaging carries out the survey and the ITC Level III analysis; you keep the contract, the client relationship and the remedial work that follows. We do not install, we do not maintain, and we do not compete with you for either.
Certified Capacity Without the Headcount
A capability you can call on rather than carry
Certified thermography is an awkward capability to own. Getting a member of staff to Level 3 is a serious commitment of time and money, the certification then has to be maintained, and unless your portfolio is very large the work arrives in bursts rather than steadily. Most O&M businesses conclude, correctly, that it does not pay to carry it.
The alternative is not to go without. It is to have it available when a site needs it. We are set up to work as a subcontractor to your programme: you tell us the sites, the access arrangements and the dates that suit, and we deliver the survey and the analysis into your schedule. Subcontracted work is not a sideline for us either. We have flown more than five hundred solar missions over the past five years, a large share of them on behalf of other companies, so the working pattern is familiar and the paperwork does not need inventing.
What that gives you is straightforward to describe to a client. Thermographic survey flown to IEC 62446-3 under conditions assessed against a calibrated irradiance model before mobilising. Analysis at ITC Level III, with the certification named and numbered. Optional IEC 62446-1 string-level electrical testing in the same visit, so a site is covered thermally and electrically without a second mobilisation. A structured report with findings classified by severity and located precisely enough for your own team to walk to them.
It also removes an argument you would otherwise have to have. When a client or their insurer asks who carried out the inspection, the answer is a certified third party with no interest in the outcome, and the certification number is in the document.
At a glance
How Drone Media Imaging works alongside solar O&M contractors, and what the arrangement protects.
- We are the subcontractor, not the competitor. You hold the client, the maintenance contract and the remedial work. We survey and report.
- Independence where it counts. IEC 62446-3 states that testing personnel should be independent of the owner or operator where the purpose is fire prevention. We install nothing and maintain nothing.
- ITC Level III analysis, named and numbered in the report, so your client’s insurer or risk surveyor can verify it rather than take it on trust.
- Capacity without headcount. Certified thermography on call for the sites that need it, with no need to train, certify and retain the capability in-house.
- Optional IEC 62446-1 string testing in the same visit, so a site is covered thermally and electrically in one mobilisation.
- Reporting you can present. Delivered so it can go to your client under your cover, or direct to them, whichever suits the relationship.
- Findings handed back, not acted on. Anything requiring attention goes into the report as an area warranting further investigation. That work is yours.
You keep the client. We give the report the independence it needs to be worth something.
Related Solar Survey Services
We Do Not Compete With You for the Work
Survey, analysis and reporting. That is the whole scope.
The reasonable question any contractor asks before letting a third party onto a client’s roof is what happens next. Specifically, whether the survey turns into a quotation for the remedial work, and whether the client ends up with a new relationship they did not have before.
The answer is that we do neither, and not as a matter of policy we could quietly change. Drone Media Imaging does not install solar, does not maintain it, and does not carry out remedial work of any kind. There is nothing for us to sell you out of. When a survey finds something, it goes into the report as an area warranting further investigation by a suitably qualified contractor, and that contractor is you.
The same limitation is what makes the report worth having in the first place. An inspection carried out by an organisation that also profits from the repairs is exactly the arrangement the independence clause in IEC 62446-3 exists to avoid, and it is the first thing a loss adjuster looks at if a claim is ever contested. Our having no stake is not a courtesy to you, it is the thing that gives the document standing.
How the report reaches your client is your call. Some contractors present it under their own cover as part of the maintenance reporting, others prefer it to go direct so the independence is visible. Both work, and it is worth deciding at the quotation stage rather than afterwards.
Where an Independent Survey Earns Its Place
Not every site in a portfolio needs a third party. Most routine condition monitoring is properly yours and there is no reason to hand it over. The cases where independence changes the value of the work are narrower and easier to spot than they look.
When the client’s insurer or risk surveyor is the audience. This is the common one. The question has come from outside the maintenance relationship, so the answer carries further if it comes from outside it too.
At the start or end of a contract. Taking on a portfolio you did not previously maintain, an independent baseline records the condition you inherited, which is worth a great deal if something is found six months later. The same applies in reverse when you hand a site on.
When a client questions the yield. A survey by the contractor responsible for performance is an awkward document in that conversation, however honest. An independent one is not.
When a warranty claim is live. Manufacturers and their insurers scrutinise the provenance of evidence, and a survey carried out by the maintaining contractor invites a challenge that a certified third party’s does not.
Where certified analysis is specified. Some contracts and some insurers name a competence level. If your team does not hold it, subcontracting the survey is quicker and cheaper than acquiring it, and the certification number goes in the report.
Outside those cases, carry on as you are. We would rather be the capability you call on for the sites that need it than a supplier trying to displace work you already do well.
Solar PV Inspection and String Testing on a Commercial Rooftop Array
A 50 kWp commercial rooftop array in Kent, surveyed thermally and tested across all eight DC strings in one visit. A band of forty modules running uniformly warm looked like degradation until the electrical results showed every string healthy. Read together, it was an operating-state signature, not a fault. That distinction changed what the owner had to do next.
Governing Standards
- IEC TS 62446-3:2017 is the technical specification for outdoor infrared thermography of photovoltaic modules and plants. Annex B addresses the competence of the thermographic expert and, where the purpose is fire prevention, the independence of testing personnel from the owner or operator.
- IEC 62446-1:2016+A1:2018 governs the optional string-level electrical testing, covering verification, documentation and commissioning of grid-connected PV systems.
- ISO 18436-7:2014 sets the international framework for thermographic condition monitoring personnel, and our analysis practice is aligned to it, alongside ASNT SNT-TC-1A and ANSI/ASNT CP-105.
- RC62, the joint code of practice issued by the UK insurance industry, recommends thermographic examination as part of the risk regime for photovoltaic installations.
- Survey conducted by Steve Fisher, ITC Level III Certified Master Thermographer (Infrared Training Centre; Certification #205722059), holding iRed Academy Thermal Imaging Category 2 and Drone Thermography Category 1, with BS 7671:2018 Level 3 electrical competence.
- Flown under CAA Operational Authorisation, with GVC and A2 CofC, and fully insured for commercial operations across the UK, Ireland and Europe.
Add Certified Thermography to Your Offer
Tell us the portfolio, roughly how many sites and what your clients are being asked for. We can quote per site, per megawatt or against a programme across a season, and we will work to your access arrangements and your dates rather than ours. If it is one array with a deadline on it, that is fine too. Quotations and consultations are free. We work across Sussex, Hampshire, Kent and Surrey, and travel throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe.
