Why Solar Plants Underperform: 12 Design & Engineering Mistakes EPCs Must Prevent

Why Solar Plants Underperform: 12 Design & Engineering Mistakes EPCs Must Prevent Solar plant underperformance is the gap between expected energy (modeled) and actual energy (delivered)—usually visible as PR drop, repeated trips, hotspots, mismatch losses, avoidable derating, and high downtime. In simple terms, solar plant underperformance happens when engineering decisions allow controllable losses to grow silently.A widely referenced way to communicate PV performance is the Performance Ratio (PR)—which converts complex losses into one comparable metric. NREL’s PR guidance explains PR as a practical indicator of how a plant converts available sunlight into usable electricity after losses.This blog breaks down the…