Digitalizing O&M in the Renewable Energy Sector: 6 Field Service Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

The renewable energy sector is growing at a staggering pace. Solar farms, wind turbines, and transformer stations are popping up everywhere. In 2025 alone, the number of photovoltaic installations in Poland grew by 95,000, with total PV capacity surpassing 21.8 GW (as of late 2024/early 2025, according to the Energy Regulatory Office and the Institute for Renewable Energy data). Add to that over 1.5 million active micro-installations (data from the end of 2024) and wind energy capacity approaching 9.3 GW (Polish Wind Energy Association), and you get a massive infrastructure that requires regular inspections, repairs, and precise reporting.

Challenge 1: Wasted trips and a low First-Time Fix Rate

One of the most costly issues in energy maintenance operations is the so-called “wasted trip” (or empty run). The scenario usually goes like this: a technician arrives at a remote PV or wind farm and diagnoses the issue, only to realize they don’t have the right spare part on hand. They also lack key information about the repair history and have no idea that the exact same fault has popped up multiple times over the past few months.

The result? A trip back to the base, a return visit for the same work order, and consequently—wasted time that could have been spent on other tasks, extra mileage, and a frustrated customer waiting for their installation to be back online. Every unnecessary return trip costs the company hundreds of dollars, which can easily add up to hundreds of thousands annually.

Challenge 2: Manual scheduling and overlapping technician routes

Another massive hurdle is the actual scheduling of field crews. In many renewable energy companies, dispatchers still build schedules manually, using Excel or standard calendars. They can easily spend 4 to 5 hours a day trying to juggle dozens of variables: technician locations, skill sets, task priorities, and customer-agreed deadlines.

Despite the massive effort and hours poured into planning, the result is often chaotic, crisscrossing routes. Technicians end up completing fewer work orders than they could, while operational costs keep climbing.

Challenge 3: Lack of real-time visibility into field progress

The next major challenge is the lack of ongoing oversight. Dispatchers often have no idea where exactly their crews are or what the current status of individual work orders is. In a traditional setup, coordinators are forced to make dozens of phone calls a day just to ask for location and progress updates. This distracts the technicians and burns a lot of time. On top of that, when an urgent breakdown occurs, the dispatcher doesn’t know who can be sent to the site the fastest. This level of disorganization directly threatens deadlines and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Challenge 4: Working in dead zones (no cellular coverage)

The nature of the renewable energy sector is such that installations are often located in areas where cellular connectivity can be highly unreliable. Solar farms and wind turbines are frequently built in vast, remote areas far from cities, and transformer stations often lack cell service as well.

In these conditions, most apps for field technicians simply stop working. The worker can’t complete a report, sign a protocol, or close a work order. As a result, they revert to paper, taking notes manually and re-typing the data into the system later (often after hours). This isn’t just duplicating work; it also increases the risk of errors and lost documentation.

Challenge 5: IT security, audits, and rigid “out-of-the-box” SaaS solutions

The larger the energy company, the more stringent its IT security requirements. Major players must undergo regular audits, comply with ISO standards, and often meet the requirements of the NIS2 directive. In this context especially, ready-made, “out-of-the-box” solutions prove too rigid because they:

• don’t allow for deep integration with existing infrastructure (ERP, CRM, GIS),
• can’t be adapted to fit a large company’s complex processes,
• store data on servers outside the EU or in ways that make auditing difficult.

Challenge 6: Scattered repair and inspection documentation

The final challenge revolves around reporting and data quality. Managers often struggle to obtain unified, comparable data from completed inspections. Every technician fills out the report “their own way”, photos end up on personal messaging apps, and the final documentation is created from memory. All of this makes it incredibly difficult to:

• prepare reports for end customers and investors,
• prove that work was completed in the event of a dispute,
• analyze the root causes of recurring failures,
• meet audit and compliance requirements.

Build an operational advantage with a system that understands your industry’s needs

Today, digitalizing Operations & Maintenance (O&M) in the renewable energy sector isn’t a question of “if”, but “when”. Companies that are the first to transition to a well-organized digital ecosystem will build a competitive advantage based on lower operational costs, better on-time performance (SLA compliance), and higher service quality.

The key to success is choosing a system that understands the realities of field work in the renewable energy sector. One that works offline, optimizes routes, supports technicians in real time, and adapts to the workflows of a large organization.

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