Advice on PV quote please!

OTHAFA_2

Today I had an excellent guy from Project Solar call to survey our house and give a quote for a PV installation. He was very thorough and explained everything very well with absolutely no pressure to buy.

The rear of our roof faces 10 degrees west of south and has a 38 degree pitch giving a KK value of 987 and a SF value of 0.95. It is a plain flat area with plenty of room for the 16 (two rows of 8) Evolution +10 black 250w panels. The annual generation is quoted at 3598.60 kWh. The system will also have a Hot Water controller.

As I said at the beginning I felt the guy was excellent but would like opinions on the price and company.

The quote is a total of £7985 - is this reasonable?

PS I live between Cwmbran and Pontypool in South Wales.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

theboylard

Welcome to the forum!

Like your plan, get the comedy quote in first!


Take 3 grand off that figure.
Get more quotes.

tunnel

When the salesman left did he jump back on his horse,put on his mask and a pointed hat cos that's just daylight robbery
Do as tbl says, get more quotes,closer to £5k rather than £8k is where you should be aiming for,then post your quotes on here
Welcome to the forum by the way!

Martyn1981

OTHAFA wrote: »

As I said at the beginning I felt the guy was excellent but would like opinions on the price and company.

Hiya, and welcome.

price - too high.

company - here's a recent thread, at least your deal was a little better (or less bad!)

Project Solar panels quote.

Mart.

OTHAFA_2

Thanks for the welcome and advice everyone.

Price did seem high, especially after he told me how easy the installation would be. I've now arranged for another 3 companies to come and give me quotes.

The roof is a plain no lumps or bumps 9.8m x 4.2m with easy access, faces almost due south, 38 degree pitch and no shading. Loft has easy access, is fully boarded with 2.2m headroom and a simple route for the cabling to the consumer unit.

I'll let you all know how I get on.

Cheers
Bob Jeffries

OTHAFA_2

Have received extimates in advance of a survey that suggest costs of about £5,800 for a conventional system, £6,600 for a Solar Edge system and £7,000 for an En-Phase system, any adice on the merits of paying more for the higher tech systems.

Cheers
Bob Jeffries

tunnel

OTHAFA wrote: »

Have received extimates in advance of a survey that suggest costs of about £5,800 for a conventional system, £6,600 for a Solar Edge system and £7,000 for an En-Phase system, any adice on the merits of paying more for the higher tech systems.

Cheers
Bob Jeffries

Hi bob,
If what you say about your roof is correct and you have no shading (do you?)then it's not necessary to have solaredge or enphase as these are used primarily for shade management
A plain and simple 1 or 2 string inverter would suffice and bring down your costs.
What's your rough location, you may be able to get some recommendations to help get your price down.

edit, still think at £6600 for solaredge that someone has a pointed hat on!

Martyn1981

OTHAFA wrote: »

Have received extimates in advance of a survey that suggest costs of about £5,800 for a conventional system, £6,600 for a Solar Edge system and £7,000 for an En-Phase system, any adice on the merits of paying more for the higher tech systems.

Cheers
Bob Jeffries

Hiya. £5.8k is a nice improvement. Getting better fast, keep up the good work.

Both tunnel and I have SolarEdge on one of our systems. It is really good, does exactly what it says on the tin. But if you don't have shading problems, then it's not really going to add any value, so save your money, and avoid any fears of accessing the extra kit if something goes wrong.

Mart.

OTHAFA_2

We are between Cwmbran and Pontypool (51.676285, -3.018537). Certainly have no shading at this time of year, may possibly have a very small amount from the ridge of a house behind and at 90 degrees to us for a few hours when the sun is low in mid-winter.

oldskoo1

You can certainly do a lot better than your initial quote then. People have had a 4kW system installed with a basic inverter for £4.5k!!

I paid £4,750 for a 4kW system with a slightly better regarded samil invertor and its doing incredibly well. It is exceeding its month by month expected generation target by quite some margin despite being a 50d angle roof, pointing 188 S.

So i'm looking forward to cooler months with lower sun angles and bright days. I expect to do quite well there too.

Interesting they included microinvertors if you have no shading.

I would strongly suggest you speak to 5 different companies. I phoned them all and judged them all on their assertiveness, sales tactics, numbers provided (checked against PVGIS estimator) and i even looked into their publicly available accounts, trading history and of course internet reviews.

You will find someone willing to install a cheaper system, just ask for it and find out what options there were. For me, most were between 5k and 5.5k and then i found the sub 5k guys.

They did a great job.