About

The Amicus O&M Cooperative brings together a network of independent solar companies across the U.S. to provide operations and maintenance (O&M) services for geographically distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) portfolios. Our member-companies provide client-facing services and perform onsite preventive and corrective maintenance work, while the cooperative offers a common infrastructure that enables them to deliver improved service for less.

Mission

Our mission is to ensure that solar PV fulfills its promise as a responsible and reliable energy source, for generations to come.

Values

Our values apply to multiple stakeholders (member-companies, asset owners, and partners) who ultimately share the same goal: to optimize the performance and economic value of solar assets over the long term.

Cooperation

• We engage collaboratively with stakeholders to achieve our common goals; listening closely to understand each party’s interests, compromising where needed to find common ground, and sharing ideas, solutions, and best practices to maintain the performance of solar assets in our care.

Reliability

• Reliability is a hallmark of our members: they are consistent and dependable in following through with their commitments to each other and to clients. Similarly, we seek to make solar PV assets as reliable as we are: for solar PV to be regarded as a credible energy source, it must perform to expectation.

Fairness

• We strive to treat all stakeholders fairly and with respect: we honor the value of each member-company’s work, equitably apportioning benefits of membership in the cooperative; and we treat clients and partners fairly by sharing risk and reward.

Long-term thinking

• We are in the business of ensuring that solar PV systems will perform well for decades to come; as such, we employ long-term thinking in our approach to their operations and maintenance.

About Cooperatives

Cooperatives are member-owned, democratically-managed organizations. Each member-company owns a single share in the cooperative, giving it an equal vote in matters of governance as well as an equal share in the profit the cooperative generates. Thanks to this structure, the member-companies have a different kind of relationship than is typically found in conventional business relationships, in that they operate as equals. We believe that this is a better way to do business and that it results in all our member-companies providing better customer service and higher quality work.

Each member-company’s success is rooted in the strength of the group. The cooperative model is naturally collaborative, and fosters an environment of knowledge sharing to assist each member-company with technical issues, ultimately enhancing the performance of solar PV systems throughout the U.S.

Cooperatives follow a common set of principles, adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) in 1995. They include: voluntary and open membership, democratic member control, members’ economic participation, autonomy and independence, education, training and information, cooperation among cooperatives, and concern for community. For more information about the ICA, visit: www.ica.coop

Our sister cooperative

Through our sister organization, the Amicus Solar Cooperative, member-companies pool their purchasing power to obtain lower pricing on both the products they sell (solar PV modules, inverters, racking, etc.) and the services they utilize (marketing, payroll, office supplies, freight, fuel cards, credit card processing, software, etc.). In 2016, a subset of Amicus Solar member-companies collaborated to secure a U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative award to launch a new, independent cooperative, the Amicus O&M Cooperative, to help fill yet another solar industry need: streamlined, cost-effective operations and maintenance (O&M) services to ensure that solar PV systems fulfill their performance expectations over the short and long term.

What’s in a name?

While they operate independently, the two cooperatives are closely linked through the shared name, shared membership, and shared missions.

Powered by SunShot: About the SunShot Initiative

The U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort that aggressively drives innovation to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources before the end of the decade. Through SunShot, the Energy Department supports efforts by private companies, universities, and national laboratories to drive down the cost of solar electricity to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour. Learn more at energy.gov/sunshot.