Solar Panel Advice (Wirral)

SherriRuffles

Evening All,

Living on The Wirral

Any Solar Panel & Battery Expereince Please?

I have had a quote from a "Which Recommended" company "SWS NorthWest" to install a solar panel & battery storage system on my bungalow

I have no experience of this subject, but the engineer who came round explained the setup / completed the survey of bungalow & loft etc - seemed a knowledgable chap, certainly not pushy, infact said I couldn't order on the day of the survey but had to wait for the survey quote to arrive

31 pages arrived today explaining "everything" with calculations of energy etc etc

The system is to comprise of below (plus lots of other stuff but the main components I guess are below)

10 x 400 w Longi Black Panels

Lux 3.6 kw Hybrid Inverter

2 x 3.2 kw Greenlinx batteries

plus bits & pieces, installation & certification @ a total cost of £9,895

Anybody have any expeerince?

Welcome any Thoughts / Comments / Advice

Thanks in advance

QrizB

Just looking at the bottom line, that's a more reasonable price than many of those we've seen recently.

The panels installed would be almost £5k and the battery system is another £4.6k (£5.5k less VAT) so on the face of it that price is about right.

Screwdriva

Sorry to say, I would not proceed with that quote. The price is attractive but the quality of the brands offered are not. Ideally, you want to have any from the list below:

1) Panels - Sharp, Hyundai, Solarwatt, REC, Panasonic, Sunpower or Aleo 400W panels.
2) Inverters - SolarEdge, GivEnergy or Enphase inverters.
3) Optimizers - SolarEdge or Tigo only. 
4) Battery - LG, SolarEdge, GivEnergy or Tesla only. 
5) Hot Water Diverter - MyEnergi Eddi 
6) EV Charger - MyEnergy Zappi

Many have looked the other way on buying Chinese brands but I'd avoid those entirely if it was my roof, for a multitude of reasons. Instead, I' d suggest asking your installer to offer any of the above at a similar price. 

ecraig

I paid 350 more and got 12 400w panels with optimisers, solaredge inverter, 6.5kwh battery growatt battery.
I'd recommend you get some more quotes. 

Alnat1

I think that's a fairly reasonable quote.

What's your annual electricity use in kWh and which direction will the panels face? Is there more space on the roof or is 10 panels the max that will fit? 

Magnitio

Screwdriva said:

Sorry to say, I would not proceed with that quote. The price is attractive but the quality of the brands offered are not. Ideally, you want to have any from the list below:

1) Panels - Sharp, Hyundai, Solarwatt, REC, Panasonic, Sunpower or Aleo 400W panels.
2) Inverters - SolarEdge, GivEnergy or Enphase inverters.
3) Optimizers - SolarEdge or Tigo only. 
4) Battery - LG, SolarEdge, GivEnergy or Tesla only. 
5) Hot Water Diverter - MyEnergi Eddi 
6) EV Charger - MyEnergy Zappi

Many have looked the other way on buying Chinese components but I'd avoid those brands if it was my roof for a multitude of reasons. Instead, I' d suggest asking your installer to offer any of the above at a similar price. 

Where are the GivEnergy products manufactured? Are they reliable and what is their customer service like?

SherriRuffles

Alnat1 said:

I think that's a fairly reasonable quote.

What's your annual electricity use in kWh and which direction will the panels face? Is there more space on the roof or is 10 panels the max that will fit? 

Hi Alnat1,

Annual Use = Just under 5000 - panels will face directly South - 10 is max number on South facing roof - there is a East facing small roof which could be utilised up until around 1 pm for any additional panels.

SherriRuffles

Magnittio

FromGgoogle - GivEnergy products made in UK, Ireland Australia & China

QrizB

Magnitio said:

Where are the GivEnergy products manufactured? Are they reliable and what is their customer service like?

According to @ispookie666 reliability is poor and support minimal.

See these threads:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6365985/givenergy-woes

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6395762/givenergy-battery-capacity-problems

ispookie666

GivEnergy are UK based but their products come from the far east, same as every other company.  

Disclaimer - I'm a very unhappy customer.  

Good bits - Looks neat, works if you overlook the obvious problems, Home assistant integration

Bad bits 

•  The waiting time for GE Kit is measured in months(6+)
• Closed system - their batteries only work with their inverter(I wonder why?) 
• Variable capacity - as their BMS software (I hope its just software and not hardware) is unreliable and the displayed usable capacity is a random number.  eg: if it shows 100% State of charge, the actual value can be anywhere betwen 4% and 100%!
• Connectivity - seems to have been addressed with the 2nd Generation inverter 
• Board failure - quiet a few customers have had main boards fail, always seems to be the installers fault
• Customer service (seems to be variable) - I have had shocking service.  Calls go unanswered, emails are not returned, everything is a complete mess.  They are very quick to blame everyone except themselves.  
• Multiple failures - DC isolator, BMS, Inverter, Batteries.  

For me the biggest problem is how unreliable the capacity is - If you are seriously considering Time shifting/using ToU tariffs, I'd look else where.  

PS:  My back up power /EPS is not working and no one willing to take responsibility!  

[Deleted User]

I would get a quote from at least one other installer. I would recommend GenFit Solar, Chester. MyEnergi UK are now offering a battery solution.