Package strategy
A Practical FIM and BOP Package Strategy for Solar Projects
An interactive guide to splitting owner-supplied equipment and balance-of-plant scope without losing control of the interfaces.
Duc Hoang, PMP
In large-scale solar projects, traditional procurement strategies often present a dilemma:
- Single EPC: While seemingly simple, a single EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) contractor can lead to higher costs due to lack of competitive bidding for individual components.
- Multiple Packages: Breaking down the project into numerous smaller packages can introduce significant management overhead, coordination challenges, and increased risk of interface issues.
- Unclear Responsibility: With many contractors, pinpointing accountability for delays or defects becomes difficult, leading to finger-pointing and project stagnation.
- Performance Gaps: Ensuring consistent performance across diverse suppliers and contractors is a major hurdle, often resulting in unmet project targets.
One option is to free-issue the PV modules and keep the remaining balance-of-plant scope in a clearly defined package. It can work when the owner is equipped to manage the retained interfaces.
- Cost control: Direct module procurement may remove an EPC markup, but it also moves procurement, logistics and interface work to the owner.
- Interface count: Keeping the remaining BOP scope together can reduce the number of contractual boundaries the project team must actively manage.
- Accountability: Fewer, larger packages can make responsibility easier to see, provided the handover points and acceptance evidence are named.
- Integrated performance: A BOP wrapper can consolidate performance obligations, while module compatibility and overall plant performance still need deliberate allocation.
A solar plant contains many physical and contractual interfaces beyond the modules.
The Balance of Plant (BOP) encompasses all components of a solar power plant except the PV modules themselves. This includes inverters, transformers, electrical infrastructure, mounting systems, monitoring equipment, and civil works. The key to successful BOP management lies in strategic package design that optimizes interfaces, responsibilities, and risk allocation.
The practical work is to define each boundary before tender: design inputs, delivery point, custody, installation, testing, performance responsibility and the evidence required to accept a handover. The package split is useful only if the owner has the capability to manage what it retains.