At first glance, most solar PV systems look perfectly healthy.
But many of the faults that reduce performance, and increase fire risk, are completely invisible to the naked eye.
Issues like hotspots, loose connections and failing components often develop quietly, long before they show up as alarms or obvious drops in output.
That’s why thermal imaging is built into our Silver and Gold commercial O&M packages at Armex.
It allows us to see problems early, when they’re quick and inexpensive to fix, not after they’ve already impacted yield or caused failures.
Here’s a real example from site.
Drag the slider to reveal what a normal inspection misses.
What we see visually
From a standard inspection, everything looks fine:
Most contractors would mark this as “healthy”.
What thermal imaging shows
This isn’t a general “warm panel” or whole-string issue.
It’s a localised module fault.
One panel is showing several distinct rectangular hot blocks, while the surrounding modules remain thermally uniform and cool. In a healthy string, temperatures should be broadly consistent across every module.
When one panel stands out like this, it’s a red flag.
You can clearly see:
These hotspots mean energy is being lost as heat instead of power.
And over time, heat accelerates degradation.
Why this matters commercially
For commercial systems, small faults don’t stay small.
One overheating connection or weak module can:
Thermal imaging lets us catch these issues early, so repairs can be planned into routine maintenance visits, when access is already in place and costs stay low.
What Armex thermal surveys detect
During routine O&M visits, we identify issues that are often invisible during standard visual inspections.
Most of these faults can’t be identified through visual inspection alone and often go unnoticed until they affect performance or cause failure. Thermal surveys help us catch them early, when fixes are simple, planned and cost-effective.
If you’d like a clearer picture of your system’s health, share a few details below and we’ll recommend the right next steps.
Book a Solar Health Check
Send us a few details and we’ll get in touch to discuss your system and recommend the right maintenance or thermal survey.