PWPM Wiki

Renewable Energy Project Lessons Learned

This is a practical guide to building a lessons learned for a renewable energy project project — what went well and badly, captured to improve future projects, adapted to the realities of delivering a renewable energy installation.

What a Lessons Learned is

A lessons learned is what went well and badly, captured to improve future projects. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Lessons Learned. On a renewable energy project project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.

Why it matters for a Renewable Energy Project project

Renewable Energy Project projects live or die on delivering a renewable energy installation. A well-built lessons learned gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how renewable energy project projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.

What to include

  • What happened
  • Impact
  • Root cause
  • Recommendation

Renewable Energy Project-specific considerations

Tailor the lessons learned to the risks that most often derail renewable energy project projects:

  • Regulatory and grid approval
  • Large capital and payback
  • Technical integration

Example

On a real renewable energy project project, the lessons learned would be shaped by delivering a renewable energy installation. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — regulatory and grid approval, large capital and payback, technical integration — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.