The operator behind more than 80 MWp

Sunbird O&M operates and maintains commercial and industrial solar and battery plants across South Africa, whoever built them.

Rows of solar modules on the Moruleng Mall roof, with a long mountain ridge beyond — Moruleng Mall, rooftop solar plant

Why a separate company

Sunbird Solar designs and builds commercial and industrial solar and battery plants. It set up Sunbird O&M as a standalone company because a plant needs one accountable operator for its whole life, not only the installer who built it.

Sunbird O&M runs separately, from its own offices in Ballito, with its own team and management, and one job: keeping commercial and industrial plants producing, reporting on them every month, and staying with the owner for the life of the system.

Every plant Sunbird Solar builds is handed to Sunbird O&M. Plants other installers built are taken over and run the same way.

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A selection of sites

R67.4m

Client savings a year Estimated

1,112 kWh/kWp

Specific yield a year, capacity-weighted

2018

Earliest asset still operating

The selection is the 68 sites with verified performance data on file: 40.3 MWp, generating 45,788 MWh a year (annualised), with 21,073 MWh delivered to date (measured).

53 of 68 sites with a full measured twelve months

Built by Sunbird Solar and taken over from others, by capacity

Designed and built by Sunbird Solar: 50 sites, 26.4 MWp
Built by others, under Sunbird O&M: 18 sites, 13.9 MWp

The three largest groups of owners

Property funds and shopping centres
Many centres, plants from several installers, and one report for the fund. Vukile Property Fund’s centres run under one operator.
28 retail and shopping centre sites
16,607 kWp
Industrial
Manufacturing, food and pharmaceutical sites, where the plant has to work around production.
13 industrial sites
12,036 kWp
Commercial
Commercial property and businesses that want one monthly report their finance team can use.
24 commercial property sites
10,905 kWp

By sector, July 2026. Industrial combines the manufacturing, food and beverage, and pharmaceutical rows. Bars compare each group’s capacity.

Figures as at July 2026. A dated statement, not live data. Totals cover assets with verified performance data on file; sites still being brought into reporting are excluded rather than estimated. A year's generation is the trailing twelve months where a full year exists, otherwise the measured period annualised. Savings are the value of generation in client production reports at the tariffs that applied.