Old inverter broken; new quote any good?

Mandragorin

Hello

We had a solar pv system fitted six years ago and the inverter has just failed - a month after the ECIC warranty expired!

Anyway, we've just been quoted £4900 to have a solar edge system retrofitted and was wondering if this was any good.

We have a 3.76kWp system with 16 Solar BP3235N panels and a not working Aurora power one inverter.

We have been quoted for:
Solaredge HD Wave 3680 inverter
Solaredge P300 power optimiser
Connecting the solar pv system to our boiler (so any excess power generated would heat the water).
20yr parts and labour warranty
They'll also clean the panels whilst they're on the roof.

Grateful for any comments or views people may have.

Thanks

tunnel

IT'S TOO EXPENSIVE


A replacement inverter would/should cost around £500-£1k(depending on make and model) with possibly up to £100 fitting cost.


Why are you being quoted retro fitting solaredge? Do you have shading on your panels? If so why wasn't that picked up on by your original installer.

Dave_Fowler

This seems quite a high quote, as the installers will be using your original panels, and probably the wiring from the inverter to the export meter and onwards to the import meter. All the roof structure and fittings will be re-used.

Unless you have problems with shading it's not worth going to SolarEdge. Just leave everything on the roof as it is and replace the old inverter.

Having a replacement standard inverter fitted should be less than £1k. Even if you have shading problems there would have to be a significant gain - from solving a shading issue etc - for you to make up the £3.9k difference.

Dave F

chamelion

Agree. outrageous price... I had quotes for an entire 4kw installation for not much more than that, non SE. SE added under £1k to the price, but your quote above is way too high...

ard123en

My whole installation with solar edge was about that much so think it's over the top tbh

Merlin139

:eek::eek::eek: Way Way Way Too Expensive!:eek::eek::eek:

I paid about a grand more than that for a 3.975 kWh system May 2014 and I got the panels thrown in! :rotfl: SE system as I do have shading issues about 10% and the SE makes one hell of a difference if you do! Also included the Iboost to heat the water tank. Excellent for about 7-8 months of the year. When fitted the Iboost added £150 to the amount.

Curious to know which cowboy outfit quoted this system for you? Did you ask for a new inverter to be fitted and they came back with what you got?

Cleaning the panels? How are they going to do it and what are they going to use and what difference to they claim this will make?

Mandragorin

Thanks for all those responses.
We had two quotes:
Gechnology in Luton quoted us £5300 for solaredge and £2100 to fit a Solaxboost X1 3.6T inverter
SolarPlants, based in Port Talbot (Wales) quoted us the £4900

Both said they offered a monitoring service although I'm not fussed about that. The main factor was the 20yr warranty as I'd rather not have to replace the inverter every 5 or 6 years.

Can anybody recommend someone in the Bedford/Luton/Milton Keynes area who is good?

ard123en

Retail price of solar edge inverter is about £1k plus vat so it's quite a lot for fitting

Not sure how it works with FIT if you self installed

Are you fixed on solar edge or open to others

ard123en

There is an Aurora power one inverter. On eBay now for 165 could just swap it out

tunnel

You could get yourself an SMA inverter. They come with a standard 5 year warranty that can be extended to 20 years anytime within the first 5 years.

https://www.sma-uk.com/osc/extend-a-warranty.html
https://www.sma-uk.com/fileadmin/content/www.sma-uk.com/Service/Documents/PriceList.pdf

It will work out a damn site cheaper than you are getting quoted for. You'd have piece of mind with your warranty that's backed up by probably one of the best inverter manufacturers in the market. And no.....i'm in no way affiliated with them, just offering up an alternative.
Why not re-ask the installers to quote for a replacement inverter only, be stern with them, you don't need solaredge unless you have shading and even then it may not be viable to retrofit anyway.

ard123en

Had a look around it's usually the FET transistor or capacitor that fails could be an easy repair

Take care though incase some of the output caps could be charged still