here goes :-
A Mr Hikmet ***** of ****** windows turned up at my neighbours to present a solar PV presentation to us. Mr ****** is a late middle aged Turkish gentleman I would score five out of ten for technical knowledge. I never let on I was an installer. He was with us for two hours.
******** only fit Mitsubishi 185 modules and inverters which he claims are made by "platinum" for ******* but what we would call Diehl.
He never looked at the mains board, the earthing system or even stuck his head in the loftspace all of this is done by a surveyor approximately two weeks after we sign.
He used his i phone to assertain compass direction and informed my neighbour that he would only get twelve panels on a clear roof space 10m x 3.5m with no shading but facing directly East. He did mention that he could East West split the system at additional cost.
He said Anglian always mount the inverters in the loft space and the only item downstairs was the meter and isolation point.
We watched two videos starring George Clark and one of them showed the information board on the front of the Diehl inverter but failed to mention it is unusable if stuck away in a hot loft. The Diehl 3100 s shown is an inverter with integral transformer and will run hot and clearly states in section 14 of the installers manual that operation is affected if installed above 45 degrees. Section 1 of the manual warns of installing in dusty areas so a hot roof space with fibreglass did not seem ideal but I did not tell him. I also thought that they could have used the 2800S for 12 x 185 watts.
To be fair he was not as hard sell as I thought he would be, but he give some misleading information which would make some people feel pressured.
He claims that the FIT rate is going to drop later this year and according to the Guardian (7th Feb 2011) article he produced it is under review at the moment. I was not allowed to read the article but I think it was more about the rate dropping for solar farms and not the domestic market.
He also told some big fibs about returns as he claims 10 x 185 panels in Sheffield on a S facing roof would provide over £1000 a year which niether of my solar predicton packages can get anywhere near, however someone on here may have other information.
He claimed ****** is a blue chip company and started in Solar in July 2010 and that independants were a waste of time and we were all fly boys who would disappear when the renewables bubbles bursts. He said they had specialist contractors not subbies.
His bottom line prices were as follows :-( All Mitsubishi 185 modules with Diehl inverters)
6 modules at 1.1kW is £11,000 (alleged FITS income over £32K over 25years !!)
12 modules at 2.2kW at £16,165
16 modules at 2.9kW at £21,000
No prices above 3kW.
East - West split extra cost of £1500 (assume additional inverter)
I have a list of other add on costs
solar thermal fitted between £8K and £9K, flat plate
Being as we can install a 3.84kW Sanyo HIT 240 system with Sunny boy 4000 TL twin mppt with sunny boy remote for similar money to the 12 Mitsubishi modules price above I feel that the ******** "blue chip" company is a complete rip off. The solar thermal is also about £2-3K overpriced.
Unfortunately he claims to visit four homes a day and get at least one sale which is disturbing to say the least. He was ten minutes late because he visited another property in the same road and was daft enough to tell me the house number. Needless to say I went to see them last night as well , which is sort of payment for my post !
To sum up if you are an installer this may be of some interest and if you are a consumer please get quotes from local MCS companies who are not WINDOW fitters. Alternatively if you want to pay twice what you should for some average modules please feel free to contact Mr Oglakci on ***** ****** or ******************** .
They also offer a £500 deposit loan scheme with interest at 10% PA which IMO with their pricing would make PV a non starter.
However they outsell me!
