Review of Solar Advanced Systems PV Solar Installation

Solar Advanced Systems Review

This is a time lapse video taken of our solar panel installation being fitted by Solar Advanced Systems of Edenbridge Kent. The solar panel array is 14 solar panels of 215W capacity giving a total potential output of 3kWp.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9ukxKHW6-c

The solar panels are now generating electricity and up to September 2012 had generated 2600kWh of electricity, well above the original SAP quoted figure for the whole year of 2479kWh and with 2 months still to go.

Review of Solar Advanced Systems solar panel installation.

As well as the quality of the installation and components an important consideration is the aftersales service. With the solar panels any downtime and loss of generation can end up costing you money as you are not generating and earning Feed in Tariff income. When we recently had a problem with our inverter giving an error Solar Advanced Systems were able to come out on the same day to investigate and resolve. Their staff have always been very helpful and happy to resolve any questions. We had some minor issues with paperwork prior to purchase but as that was during the storm that following the slashing of FIT payments in 2011 it was understandable with the chaos that ensued.



Review of Solar Advanced Systems solar panel installation

Solar Advanced Systems Ltd - Unit 9 Edenbridge Trade Centre, Hever Road, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 5EA

Sunny Boy Solar Inverter Stops Working with Error 8

Just returned from holiday and found our inverter had stopped working! Nearly 2 weeks of prime August generation time had been lost, estimates based on other local installations indicates that this could equate to 180kWh of electricity generation that we have missed out on. With the FIT payments and electricity savings this is likely to equate to around £100 of lost income.

The most annoying part was that it appears the inverter developed the error on the day before we left so it could have been possible to resolve it before we went away and have not lost the generation for those days in August.

The error on the Sunny Boy 3000HF inverter was Error 8 - Waiting for Grid Voltage, Check Fuse,  Contact Installer. Having tried the usual turn off, turn on and resetting fuses without success we called out the installation company to investigate the problem.

Almost as frustrating as losing the generated electricity was that the solution was very simple - Turn off, leave off and turn back on again after 10 minutes. Obviously the short reset I had tried was not sufficient to restart or reinitialise the Sunny Boy inverter to reset the error. In addtion to the £100 of lost generation I was now down another £80 with the cost of the callout by the installers!



Sunny Boy 3000HF inverter was Error 8 - Waiting for Grid Voltage, Check Fuse, Contact Installer

So the moral of the story is - if your inverter stops and is giving an error I'd suggest turning off all switches, leave it overnight and turn on again to see if that resolves the problem before calling out the installers to investigate the problem.

British Gas Fast FIT Payments & Online Meter Reading

Just before we went on holiday I submitted the latest solar panel generation readings for our FIT payments using the NEW British Gas online form - yep it is now a form not email!

The benefit seems to be that processing of the FIT payment by British Gas is much faster despite previously being one of the fastest payers for FIT.

This time the reading was submitted on 14 August and the cheque for the Feed in Tariff payment (FIT) was issued on 18th August. The latest payment was for over £500 which is a nice chunk paying towards the installation.

Well done British Gas, all we need now is payment direct to the bank account by BACS rather than posting out cheques but with payments issued in 4 days I can live with that!



British Gas Fast FIT Payments & Online Meter Reading