The MCS farce

[SolarCity]

Okay, this may knock a few chins off but I'm going to say it anyway.....

The idea that a firm can become MCS registered and then sub-contract an electrician to do the electrical works is, in my opinion, a mistake.

The more common route appears to be the man with a sales background. He employs some roofers and gets them to fit the panels. He then subs an electrician in to do the work - who invariably appears to insist on using 2.5mm cable. Between them, no one really has any idea about PV beyond mounting panels, plugging them all together, connecting them into an inverter (judging by some of the posts on this forum, usually unidentified and often reversed polarity - and obviously untested) and then switching on.

Judging by some of these forum posts again, no one appears to know how to match an inverter to an array either. Unless the array size happens to match one of the 'off the shelf' kits then some of these MCS accredited firms have no one on their staff that has a clue what to do. I can imagine there are plenty of inverters which are oversized, undersized or otherwise which have been installed at great cost to the customer. I'd be very interested to see how many arrays connected to TL inverters have been left floating. It also appears that mounting inverters to non-fire protected timber is a popular method of installation.

At any PV installation firm you need, in my strong opinion, an electrician at the top that knows the PV job inside out. If you don't have this then it is the customer that will lose out.

The MCS route is paperwork exercise and it hardly benefits the customer at all. The MCS inspection should be no different from the NICEIC inspection - the QS takes the inspector out to his jobs and the quality of the work is HIS responsibility. Anything else, frankly, should be considered a national embarassment.

 

[Toonlad]

My chin is firmly in place, and i agree 100% with what you have stated. Just last night i looked at someones website with some case study and it was incorrectly installed on many a front, and these are photos for all to see and they advocate a fault free install every time. But they seem to be getting plenty installs. Frightening !!!!!!!!!!

 

[northernsun]

Great post man. Completely agree. I would imagine there a few exceptions but on the whole its all a bit insulting really and gets right on my nerves with the amount of work I had to put into the mcs accreditation- that essentially lets my customers know that I have good bookeeping. I'm sure if more of the public knew about this they would be very interested!

 

[SolarCity]

I'd imagine they win plenty of work too.

I had a phone call last week from a guy that wanted an 'MCS electrician'. He wanted to get his roofers to install the panels and he wanted us to do the rest of the 'electric side' - not only that. He wanted US to be the MCS firm that signed everything off, certified it, tested it, handover packs etc. The best bit? "I've been ringing around but I've been quoted stupid money. The one guy wanted £600!" - I can't imagine what he was expecting to pay.

 

[solarsavings]

At any PV installation firm you need, in my strong opinion, an electrician at the top that knows the PV job inside out.

That would seriously limit the number of mcs registered companies about as there are very few indeed who know the job inside out. And quite a few post here where their word is taken as gospel yet visit their websites............................

Cant argue with the rest though.

 

[grandfortune]

Well sometimes i think that post sums me up, Im a sparky for 25+ years now as this PV is all new to me and i have had to learn so much inbetween working 10hrs a day and bringing two little kids up, i need forums like this to ask and learn very quickly as just trawlling the internet and relevant books is sometimes time consuming and a waste, on my PV course we were told nothing about inverters or the design side, we were told not to worry as the Inverter design software does all that for you, also the QMS was a nightmare for me and most sparks come to that.

I kind of agree to subbing out the work part of it but if you do find a good guy and inspect his work there shouldn't be a problem,
as for your 2.5mm reference ive used 6.0mm in all jobs as the firm deigned it that way but 2.5mm would have been fine in all the cases i cant possible see why it wouldn't be.

 

[MCS Renewables]

Completely agree.
You are lucky you do not live down this way :-

A) Solartricity - was Ideal solar - national disgrace - loads of subbies - salesmen in shopping centres- was MCS but lost it following which report and watchdog - Ringwood based.

b) Energy Conservation Group - another National disgrace - was Staywarm- was Simplee Solar - fleets of salesmen- fined by Bournemouth tradings standards- still telling same lies- Ashley Heath near Ringwood.

c) Green Energy centre - Actually Warmerhome insulation - PV installs done by one day wonder ex cavity wall installers - fleets of salesmen- woeful instals, we have many pictures. Ferndown ( not far from Ringwood!)

d) Apple solar - part of Apple windows - more suited salesmen - claim in local paper to be the biggest PV installers in the country despite only getting MCS this year.
shocking prices - Three Legged Cross ( not far from Ringwood!)

I was misled into thinking REAL were going to keep these sharks out of the system, my mistake .

Later today I am going to the Renewable Industry Awards at the Ricoh arena in Coventry we do not expect to win anything but just to be nominated and invited is great, however if any of the national sharks win anything there will be a riot !

 

[SolarCity]

That would seriously limit the number of mcs registered companies about as there are very few indeed who know the job inside out.

And if it limited the amount of MCS registered companies, would this be a bad thing?

No one knows their job inside out but I know that our industry is struggling for a decent standard at the moment. Every customer I speak to has been given poor information. I see customers coming on this forum asking for clarification because they have been badly informed by their installer. I went on an advanced course about 12 months ago and literally half of the group had no idea of how to design a system, let alone match it to an inverter. Yet here they were getting advanced training. It's nothing short of bizarre.

It is the equivalent of an qualified supervisor not knowing how to do his cable calculations.

 

[SolarCity]

I kind of agree to subbing out the work part of it but if you do find a good guy and inspect his work there shouldn't be a problem

I've no problem with that - because by inspecting his work you are effectively the QS. It is the firms that have no knowledge of PV nor electricity yet sub this side of things out that bother me.

 

[solarsavings]

And if it limited the amount of MCS registered companies, would this be a bad thing?

No one knows their job inside out but I know that our industry is struggling for a decent standard at the moment. Every customer I speak to has been given poor information. I see customers coming on this forum asking for clarification because they have been badly informed by their installer. I went on an advanced course about 12 months ago and literally half of the group had no idea of how to design a system, let alone match it to an inverter. Yet here they were getting advanced training. It's nothing short of bizarre.

It is the equivalent of an qualified supervisor not knowing how to do his cable calculations.

TBH I have no idea what the effect of fewer mcs registered companies would be. Perhaps more work for those that are registered, so much so that they have to employ others or pass it on to subbies who claim to know the job inside out only to find they haven't a clue. We have only recently got rid of experienced roofers (on their first day) and an electrician that claimed to be PV experts only for us to end up re-doing their work.

Mis-information? Training is the key and yet is for the most part p*** poor at best and disgraceful at it's worst. Most training courses can be run by a guy that has past an A1 assessor course and only days earlier the course he is teaching. No on the job experience whatsoever and I'd they've been too busy to do a little research either. Small wonder then that guys who should know better (because they done the training) don't. You want better installers, demand better training. But where to find it?

I honestly wonder if these forums help when opinion is presented as fact or best practice when often times it's neither.

I guess I've reached an age where I no longer believe someone in or out of a suit knows better or does better just because they claim to. Question everything and everyone.

 

[Easters]

Agree 100%

 

[SRE]

In some repsects the Forum for most is indicative of a desire to learn and at least that shows that most (those touting for cheap installers excluded!) genuinely want to do a decent job but that the training is sadly lacking. Fewer installers would cause horrendous backlogs of work, we've had 5 calls today for surveys and if we're busy so is everyone else - take out 25% of the market and it'll just be replaced with more muppets. I think we should be lobbying our trade bodies for more robust training and access to more cpd events. Things seem to be moving so quickly it can be difficult to keep up with current best practice.About - Solar Power UK Events This really hacks me off too - what looks like a brilliant conference, central so loads of people can get to it - really good, relevant speakers - can the smaller guys afford to attend - you've got to be joking! £650 for the conference + vat a drop in the ocean for the big guys who provide a basic service at best and totally inaccessible for the smaller guys who really care about what they are doing.:crazy:

 

[gr7]

£650 for the conference + vat a drop in the ocean for the big guys who provide a basic service at best and totally inaccessible for the smaller guys who really care about what they are doing.

Completely agree, I'd really like to attend this but simply cannot afford to.

 

[zeljuga]

This one was free, and delivered bay German experts!!![h=1]Product training day for MCS accredited PV installers[/h]

• A one day event featuring product training directly from module manufacturer SANYO and inverter manufacturer SMA
• Additional presentation from CREST (Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology) on the benefits of type testing to reduce PV system risk
• There will be NO CHARGE for this one day event

[h=1]Brought to you by the WagnerAcademy[/h]

• The Wagner Academy is a dedicated post MCS accreditation solar training school, designed to provide on-going training to solar installers, brought to you by solar supplier Wagner Solar UK Ltd
• Our aim is to bring knowledge to the fore, so installers can comfortably tackle all commissioning and installation scenarios and offer best value to homeowners

[h=1]WagnerAcademy Product Training Day ? Tuesday 19th July[/h]

• 09:00 Welcome, registration, coffee and croissants
• 10:00 Introduction & housekeeping
• 10:15 SMA ? inverter product training
• 12:15 Lunch
• 13:00 CREST ? type testing for quality assurance
• 14:00 SANYO ? PV module product training
• 16:30 Evening reception

 

[MorganPVI]

It's disapointing that there are not spot checks on at least 10% of installs and enforcement action, that is the only way to weed out the cowboys.

I do not agree that to be a solar panel installer you need to be part P. I would agree that any solar panel installer should have background in electrical installations and be fully trained as a solar installer.

The problem is that the training is not enough, the majority of courses are taught by people that have installed 1 system (usualy at the training center) and pass on knowledge gained from a book. Alot of electricians have been pushed into the solar install game , they are not roofers and roofers are not electricians. You need both trades for a sucessful job.

We can all agree the standand of some firms is very much lacking both in sales and work, which leads to conservatory firms charging £11,300 for 8 panels.