Opinions on our quote appreciated.

LittleMissSunshine123

Hi there,

we've just started out on the journey to solar and have had two quotations so far.
The first was £9,950 with 10% interest on a financed package. Thanks but no thanks!

Secondly, 3.78kw system (14 Trina panels @ 270w each) as we have a chimney that causes slight shade first thing. These panels we are advised are smaller and will be able to therefore avoid that area. SMA inverter, Geo monitor for £5,250.
A friend suggested if the panels are chinese they may be inferior. He has solar world panels.

Any thoughts appreciated. Thank you.

tunnel

I'm afraid your friend is ill informed as a great deal of the panels on the market are Chinese made, there's literally hundreds of thousands already sat on peoples rooves.
Secondly you can go around the chimney area with the use of either micro inverters or a solaredge system, in effect each system allows the panels to work individually rather than one lump where if one panel fails they all go down, the downside to this is that there's 14-16 extra bits of kit on the roof that could go wrong.
May work out a similar price for 16 panels and solaredge(you can also get to the 4kWp max for max return too) as to 14 trina panels and SMA, just keep posting your quotes and someone will be along to either give you the thumbs up or down!

Martyn1981

Hiya, and welcome. As T says there are ways round the shading issue, and if it's only for a short time in the morning, then may not be an issue anyway.

However, a 3.78kWp system with SMA inverter for little over £5k sounds like a great start, nothing wrong with that if you can't find anyone to beat it, so I think you are already sitting pretty. So sit back relax, learn what you can, get some more quotes (hopefully push the price down a little), then go for it.

As to Chinese panels, again as T says, they are everywhere. They will account for the majority of panels across the UK. When I was researching panels (back in 2011) I recall that just one Chinese manufacturer, YingLi had supplied about 25% of all the panels in California.

As an aside, I'm trying to follow most posts and quotes, and looking out for scams, and rip off's. What a difference between the two quotes. One is reasonable and will give a nice return, the other is twice the price, and at 10% finance might actually lose money. Staggering!

Mart.

LittleMissSunshine123

Thanks for the replies.

I've had some PMs with recommendations for installers and I'm hopeful given prices shared that we could come in under 5k which is what we will hold out for. I'm strict about our budget because we know what we can afford comfortably.

We liked the company behind the 5,250 quote too, nice approach and knowledgeable.

pw22

I would contact the company who gave you the quote for £5250 to see if they would be prepared to discount it to £5k if that is your budget.

Price is an important factor but when we installed our system, we went with the company that gave us a good price but who also knew what they were doing. It is really important that you have confidence in the company doing the install to do a good job.