The beginning of the end of PV

taffbutc said:

If diodes fail after several years, who is then to blame, installer, Manufacturer or MCS approved body??

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I would say installer - bad system design; should have considered something like Solar Edge (will they still be in business in a few years time?) or should have designed the system so as not to have shading during peak sunlight hours from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, say 10am-2pm subject to adjustment for BST clock change.
Or should have got the customer to sign a disclaimer if the customer insisted on full 4kW when 3kW would have been better.

It's not manufacturer because solar panels are not designed to run in shade (otherwise we'd call them "shade panels") - they are made to sit out in full unobstructed sun all day long. Bypass diodes are not fitted specifically for mitigating shading (although they will perform that function to a limited extent), so relying on them to allow bypass when a panel in a big string is shaded and the others in strong sun is not using the panel as it was intended to be used.
If I took my wife's VW Polo off road and smashed the suspension, would VW honour the warranty? Unlikely. But if the suspension failed after going over an ordinary speed bump at a sensible speed I'd expect it to be repaired under warranty.

It was only the over-generous 43p FiT that encouraged people to be silly and install panels where they should never have been installed.

I disagree I have installed a system on my own house with over 50% shading between September and March so that would mean I could not install the system which does still save me money on my fuel bills. I did use solar edge by the way.

as long as the customer is given the correct SAP and they make an informed choice from the data supplied.

taffbutc said:

Good point FB

I think SAP should be changed and anything under 20% should not be allowed to be fitted, However you know as well as me that companies would still fit them because its not controlled properly.

Your excellent point as made me ask myself this question reference the concerns of many people on the forum! If diodes fail after several years, who is then to blame, installer, Manufacturer or MCS approved body??

Regards

Sean

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MEP ELEC LTD said:

as long as the customer is given the correct SAP and they make an informed choice from the data supplied.

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That's the problem; unscrupulous salesmen offering optimistic projections.

If the SAP was clearly fudged, there should be grounds for complaint. If the customer was correctly informed in writing and warned of the potential issues of going against your recommendation, then it's the customer's problem if a "custom designed to their specification" system failed to meet expectations.

FB. said:

If the system was well-installed and the SAP calculated properly, it should be able to beat the SAP-2009 estimate even in bad years.

My system's about a year old, having seen one of the worst summers ever, yet it's about 12% above SAP in the last year. Most of those I know, or follow, are fairly similar. Not many underperform (and if they do, sometimes it's the device measuring generation - the inverter log and the generation meter being different to the electronic widget that attempts to monitor power flows).

SAP should be regarded as the absolute minimum performance level, although the occasional single month below that month's projected SAP is acceptable - although my worst-ever month relative to SAP was May2012; I exactly met the target. Every other month has beaten SAP for that month.

If a system fails to meet SAP on a rolling twelve-month period then I think it's almost certain that it was either mis-sold or badly installed.

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You do live in Cambridgeshire though ...... so you're SAP target is much more likely to be met than those further North. We've scraped a SAP rating hit with ours this year but it was close, 2010/2011 we over performed significantly despite having a telephone wire running diagonally over the panels. SAP is a certainty unless you're South of the Midlands.

SAP is an exceptionally blunt tool that shouldn't really be used and shading is for the customer to decide based on informed opinion which any decent installer will provide. At the end of the day it's down to the customer to do a bit of research about the products and installers they intend to use before they install. Last year I bought a new car, an expensive shed and booked a holiday - all researched extensively before purchased to make sure I was getting what I wanted.

It's hard to compete with either the slick salespeople from the overpriced companies or the idiots charging cost & £100 for installation but at the end of the day most people (with the exception of the vulnerable older clients) understand that slick sales = overpayment and budget price = cutting corners.

This is why REAl have to step-up and earn their money.
They should have an access point for customers to contact them with the returns they have achieved compared to what they were sold.

If policed correctly, anyone found to be miss-selling would be removed from the industry after a year

Thought you guys would like to see REAL's complaints process: - Their is no process for post install contractual issues... Also had a chat with our NICEIC assessor today (dual NAPIT and NIC certified - don't ask...) and he confirms the same, they are only interested in technical issues, commercial issues (performance, price etc) are beyond their remit.. Any protection that their is is handled by the MCS Certifiying body, So the role of REAL in all this is ...... pre-contract only...