PV Doctor Launches BESS Team; Brings Benchmarking to Smart O&M for PV Asset Owners
PV Doctor Pte. Ltd. ("PV Doctor") today announces two developments. The company is further expanding its offering by launching its Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) Team, extending its asset management expertise to storage assets operating alongside PV. In parallel, PV Doctor has enhanced its Smart O&M product with benchmarking for PV asset owners, ranking each system against comparable peers every day, with a complimentary monthly version now open to all system owners in Singapore.
Storage is fast becoming part of the solar asset. A growing share of new systems now ship with batteries, owners are retrofitting storage onto existing installations, and curtailment has become a serious issue in several markets worldwide.
Around 2% of PV Doctor's portfolio today consists of PV assets with storage deployed. This share will only increase, especially with the arrival of solar farms deployed with storage from day one.
The team starts with two new full-time hires, both graduating from Master's programmes, who will train with major storage players and focus on the growing volume of storage data across PV Doctor's portfolio. They will be supplemented by a very senior BESS hire in the coming weeks.
"Storage is changing what a solar asset is. Batteries now arrive with new systems, owners are retrofitting them onto existing ones, and curtailment is taking yield away in more and more markets. Managing a modern solar asset means understanding the battery next to it. Launching our BESS Team gives PV Doctor a new capability today, as we scale our portfolio further through our next funding rounds."
Dr. André Nobre, Co-Founder & Managing Director, PV Doctor
Solar systems located near each other receive a similar amount of sunlight and share overall weather patterns, which means they can, in general, be compared with one another. PV Doctor's new benchmarking feature compares the specific yield (kWh/kWp) of each system against other systems in its portfolio on an anonymised basis, and returns the system's ranking and percentile within that peer pool..
Figure 1: Daily yield distribution of 24 neighbouring systems on 7 October 2026, as shown in the Smart O&M Portal. The orange bar is the target system chosen for benchmarking. One in three systems in this sample (in red) underperformed its local peers.
Users can benchmark both intra-site and inter-site. Intra-site benchmarking compares parts of the same site against each other, for sites with multiple zones, meters or inverters. Inter-site benchmarking compares the site against nearby solar systems, with users choosing the comparison distance from a toggle, ranging from 1 km to 10 km from where their systems are located.
Figure 2: Yield ranking by proximity for the same system. At 3.57 kWh/kWp, it ranked #2 of 24, against a peer mean of 3.12 kWh/kWp, placing it in the top 10% of its neighbourhood.
The feature is now fully released in the Singapore market for systems fully subscribed to PV Doctor's Smart O&M Portal or completing their complimentary trials. It is also available wherever PV Doctor's portfolio is dense enough to form a meaningful peer pool, including the major Southeast Asian city centres of Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Manila. There are two ways to access the ranking:
a)
Continuously, in the Smart O&M Portal. Owners of systems onboarded into the Smart O&M Portal can check their ranking over any time span they choose (daily, monthly, yearly, lifetime or custom) and any radius from 1 to 10 km.
b)
Monthly and complimentary, in Singapore. Any system owner in Singapore can benchmark their system each month through PV Doctor's WhatsApp account, as described in the final section of this release.
For most owners, the inverter portal shows how much energy a system produced, but not whether that figure is good. Benchmarking against nearby systems closes that gap:
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A clear reference point. Systems nearby share similar sunlight and weather, so their results give owners a reference they can understand at a glance, without relying on complex yield models.
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Weather or fault? When output drops, weather is the usual explanation. If nearby systems held up over the same period, the cause lies with the system itself.
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Lost yield in numbers. A system running 10% below its peers could be losing around 10% of its revenue or savings. The ranking turns a vague concern into a figure that justifies action.
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Evidence on service quality. Peer results give owners hard evidence when discussing performance with their installer or O&smp;M contractor, including warranty or performance guarantee claims.
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Clear priorities across portfolios. Intra-site and inter-site benchmarking show which site, system section or inverter needs attention first, so maintenance activities go where they matter most.
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Simple reporting. A ranking or percentile is easy to share with management, contractors and other stakeholders.
"Most solar system owners ask us whether their systems are performing well. Benchmarking against real systems nearby answers that directly. It separates the weather from genuine faults, puts a number on lost yield, and gives owners hard evidence and urgency to address issues. It shows portfolio owners which site, system section or inverter needs attention first. Above all, it gives our clients real peace of mind about their continuous asset performance."
Dr. André Nobre, Co-Founder & Managing Director, PV Doctor
System owners in Singapore can benchmark their system monthly, on a complimentary basis, through PV Doctor's WhatsApp account. The service is open to anyone, including owners who are not yet PV Doctor clients, and needs no onboarding or subscription. It takes four steps:
1.
Start the chat. Save PV Doctor's WhatsApp number, +65 8896 0180, into your WhatsApp. Send "Hi", tap "Select an option" and choose "Benchmark My System".
2.
Pick the benchmark type. Save PV Doctor's WhatsApp number, Choose "Benchmark Last Month".
3.
Share the location. Send the latitude and longitude, or the country code and postal code (for example, SG 123456).
4.
Enter the size and monthly generation. Send the system's nominal size in kWp, then last month's generation in kWh. The result arrives straight away, comparing the system's monthly yield with the average of nearby systems within 5 km.
Step 1: Main menu, "Benchmark My System".
Step 2: Pick the benchmark type.
Step 3: Share the system location.
Step 4: Enter the size and monthly generation, get the result.
Owners whose systems fall below their peers can ask PV Doctor for a diagnostic to identify and recover lost yield. They can also move to a paid subscription at any time, which guarantees daily benchmarking capabilities, intra-site comparisons and the full Smart O&M analytics suite.
This level of automation is made possible by the pioneering work of PV Doctor's Data Engineering & Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Teams.
PV Doctor Pte. Ltd. is a pioneering solar asset performance management platform, spun off from the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Built on over 15 years of world-class photovoltaic research, PV Doctor monitors and manages over 2,600 systems across 24 countries, helping asset owners maximise energy yield, recover underperforming assets, and protect long-term returns across 2.5+ GWp of systems under monitoring.
We listen. We analyse. We cure.
