Model history
Where the model comes from.
The maturity model of the Solar Operations Maturity Institute (SOM Institute) was developed by SolrBoost. Its shape comes from software engineering: the Capability Maturity Model.
The source
The Capability Maturity Model.
Known as CMM, it was built originally so that the US Department of Defense could judge how reliably a contractor could deliver software.
-
Late 1980s
Developed at Carnegie Mellon
Watts Humphrey’s work at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
-
1991
Published as CMM version 1.0
Five levels: Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed, Optimizing.
-
Early 2000s
Succeeded by CMMI
Its lasting idea
- Stages
- Capability matures in recognisable stages.
- Levels
- A level describes how an organisation works, not how one project turned out.
- The top level
- Defined by measurement and continuous improvement.
The staged-maturity idea has since been applied in many fields.
Why it fits
Why that shape fits solar O&M.
A fleet’s output over its life depends on practices, each of them one of the model’s seven areas:
Monitoring
How faults are found.
Performance
How production is judged against expectation.
Data Quality
How far the data can be trusted.
Data Analysis
How deep the analysis goes.
Optimisation
Whether settings are ever revisited.
Finance
Whether energy becomes money.
Reporting
What reaches the people who decide.
The same gaps recur across fleets, and a described ladder is more useful than a score: it says what the next step looks like.
Kept and changed
What SolrBoost kept, and what it changed.
The Institute’s model keeps CMM’s staged ladder. What changed is what the ladder measures, and how it is read.
| Level | CMM, 1991 | SOM Institute |
|---|---|---|
| Level 0 | No level 0 | Blind |
| Level 1 | Initial | Manual |
| Level 2 | Repeatable | Reactive tooling |
| Level 3 | Defined | Systematic |
| Level 4 | Managed | Automated & integrated |
| Level 5 | Optimizing | Optimised & quantified |
Kept
- Staged levels.
- One plain-language description per level.
- The highest level defined by measurement, verification and continuous improvement.
Changed
- A level 0, ‘blind’, because many fleets have no monitoring at all, so the ladder starts below ‘manual’.
- Seven solar-specific areas on one shared spine, so levels compare across areas.
- Each respondent sets an importance and a target per area, so the gap is measured against their own ambition.
- Areas are weighted equally.
- The benchmark compares area by area.
- No single score is ever shown.
How it was built
Built on experience and research.
- Experience
- SolrBoost’s own experience of running monitoring and analytics for solar fleets.
- Research
- Commissioned research by an independent research partner.
The benchmark
From model to benchmark.
The survey turns the model into a benchmark for the South African industry, compared area by area.
The SOM Institute maturity model was developed by SolrBoost. The SOM Institute benchmark — this survey, the South African cohort it builds and the industry insights it produces — is run in partnership with the University of Cape Town, TruePoint South Africa and Partnerships for Growth (P4G).
SolrBoost operates the survey and is the only party that processes individual responses; the partners receive aggregated, anonymised results only.
The Solar O&M Maturity Survey
See what your next step looks like.
Under ten minutes. Confidential. Your benchmark, your gap analysis and the industry insights are emailed within about two weeks of the survey closing.
Take the survey