Octopus Energy solar panel post-installation problems

Suebee42

Octopus Energy installed solar panels at my property on 24 February this year. Was told pre-installation that they would be contacting DNO, and then after installation applying for Export MPAN. This was supposed to take 2-4weeks. Contacted Octopus early April to get an update, to be told there was a problem their end - a document hadn't been sent. Said it would be sorted, would keep me updated (didnt happen!) and I would be compensated for electricity already going into grid. 

 Early May, still nothing. Sent various emails and phones throughout May and then made official complaint. Customer service so disjointed - passing me on to other teams to deal with,  replies where obvious my email hadn't been read, etc. Even sending email to Greg (CEO) didn't work - did i really think it would?!! I now have two Complaint Reference numbers for the same complaint!!. Last email I received a couple of days ago (from solar panel Aftersales and complaints) said it was an installation team problem who were going to deal with it - could have told them that since April and highlighted it in complaint email sent mid May, even stating which staff had been involved!

Mid -May, I also contacted DNO to find they had received no paperwork from Octopus regarding my property and, indeed, had no record of solar panels having been fitted!!  That's when I put in official complaint! 

Total nightmare and getting very stressful at lack of action on part of Octopus Energy. Their complaints system needs a complete overhaul. It's not fit for purpose - no one wants to take responsibility to get a problem sorted! Have they grown too big, are their staff trained properly? I've seen other posts on social media from people with similar problems, yet others have had a seamless process with no problems! 

Martin Lewis perhaps you need to re-assess your rating of Octopus Energy. I've never had problems with Energy supply, billing, etc but this problem with my solar panels is getting ridiculous! 

QrizB

Just to check, as you haven't mentioned, can you confirm that:

  your panela are working,

- your generation meter is clocking up the kWh,

- you have a smart meter, and

- the smart meter export register is recording your export?

If all those are happening, all the problems are administrative at Octopus's end.

Suebee42 said:

Total nightmare and getting very stressful at lack of action on part of Octopus Energy. Their complaints system needs a complete overhaul. It's not fit for purpose - no one wants to take responsibility to get a problem sorted! Have they grown too big, are their staff trained properly? I've seen other posts on social media from people with similar problems, yet others have had a seamless process with no problems! 

You're not the first to say this. Yes, they're much worse than they used to be and that's not helped by their experiments with AI assistants.

Suebee42

Yes, I have a smart meter, and yes the panels are working. Nothing on smart meter about exporting electricity. I have the Enphase app on my phone that shows how much energy is being exported and have received monthly reports for March and April (and soon May!) showing total exported. Quite a lot with all this sunny weather! 

I know where the problem lies, thank you.🙂 Octopus haven't even applied for a G98 with DNO so system hasn't even been signed off by DNO. No one in Octopus mentioned I should receive correspondence from my DNO about this otherwise I would have been chasing it up earlier! And no Export MPAN been applied for/issued.

debitcardmayhem

Your electricity meter should still be recording your export, albeit you don’t have an MPAN so it won’t show up on Octopus app/web site. You can check on the meter to see how much it thinks you have exported. 

They Octopus really should be able to have sorted this out in mid March , have you tried X/twitter ? they are much more on the ball than the call centre 
Keep us posted

MWT

Suebee42 said:

Nothing on smart meter about exporting electricity. 

You will not see any record of your export on the IHD (you may see an indication that it is exporting when it is actually happening), but the smart meter itself will be recording the export and you should be able to see that on the meter, even without an export MPAN 

born_again

Suebee42 said:

Octopus Energy installed solar panels at my property on 24 February this year. Was told pre-installation that they would be contacting DNO, and then after installation applying for Export MPAN. This was supposed to take 2-4weeks. Contacted Octopus early April to get an update, to be told there was a problem their end - a document hadn't been sent. Said it would be sorted, would keep me updated (didnt happen!) and I would be compensated for electricity already going into grid. 

 Early May, still nothing. Sent various emails and phones throughout May and then made official complaint. Customer service so disjointed - passing me on to other teams to deal with,  replies where obvious my email hadn't been read, etc. Even sending email to Greg (CEO) didn't work - did i really think it would?!! I now have two Complaint Reference numbers for the same complaint!!. Last email I received a couple of days ago (from solar panel Aftersales and complaints) said it was an installation team problem who were going to deal with it - could have told them that since April and highlighted it in complaint email sent mid May, even stating which staff had been involved!

Mid -May, I also contacted DNO to find they had received no paperwork from Octopus regarding my property and, indeed, had no record of solar panels having been fitted!!  That's when I put in official complaint! 

Total nightmare and getting very stressful at lack of action on part of Octopus Energy. Their complaints system needs a complete overhaul. It's not fit for purpose - no one wants to take responsibility to get a problem sorted! Have they grown too big, are their staff trained properly? I've seen other posts on social media from people with similar problems, yet others have had a seamless process with no problems! 

Martin Lewis perhaps you need to re-assess your rating of Octopus Energy. I've never had problems with Energy supply, billing, etc but this problem with my solar panels is getting ridiculous! 

Don't forget they have 8 weeks from starting the complaint to resolve. If not then you can take it to ombudsman.

Suebee42

Yes, am aware. That will be the next step!! Not sure how effective the ombudsman is!!  Thanks

Suebee42

debitcardmayhem said:

Your electricity meter should still be recording your export, albeit you don’t have an MPAN so it won’t show up on Octopus app/web site. You can check on the meter to see how much it thinks you have exported. 

They Octopus really should be able to have sorted this out in mid March , have you tried X/twitter ? they are much more on the ball than the call centre 
Keep us posted

Don't use X/Twitter but am tempted to sign up just to see if it helps. Have heard response is good. Recently put a review on Trust pilot. 

Suebee42

UPDATE ON MY SOLAR PANEL PROBLEM

I found Octopus Energy official Facebook page and there was an item there about someone recommending Octopus to everyone because so pleased with their service. I outlined my problem in a comment to this item (as did many others!!) and had a response from someone at Octopus - he was in fact responding to all the negative comments. He contacted me by email and said he would help to get things sorted.  He must monitor and deal with social media comments. Also put a negative review on Trust pilot the other day and got a response to that recently.
There does seem to be some action now. A G98 form has gone in to National Grid but they have a bit of a backlog as lots of people are wanting solar panels (I am checking with National Grid myself rather than believing what I'm told by Octopus. I now have someone from Octopus, Ev, who is going to get things sorted ASAP!  Watch this space!! 

debitcardmayhem

Suebee42 said:

UPDATE ON MY SOLAR PANEL PROBLEM

I found Octopus Energy official Facebook page and there was an item there about someone recommending Octopus to everyone because so pleased with their service. I outlined my problem in a comment to this item (as did many others!!) and had a response from someone at Octopus - he was in fact responding to all the negative comments. He contacted me by email and said he would help to get things sorted.  He must monitor and deal with social media comments. Also put a negative review on Trust pilot the other day and got a response to that recently.
There does seem to be some action now. A G98 form has gone in to National Grid but they have a bit of a backlog as lots of people are wanting solar panels (I am checking with National Grid myself rather than believing what I'm told by Octopus. I now have someone from Octopus, Ev, who is going to get things sorted ASAP!  Watch this space!! 

They have sent a G98 not G99? how many panels have you got and what is the inverter model?

You may need to read this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6612975/solar-panel-and-battery-quote-advice#latest
 

solarstorm25

Not directly related to your problem but im having awful problems with a solar installation by Octopus. 

At every stage there has been an issue.
I received a phone call two weeks before the installation to say that the panels etc would be delivered the week before but had to be kept inside! The guy said 'its only two small pallets' 
So I reluctantly agreed it could go in my workshop ( as its only two pallets I could work round it). Fast forward to delivery day and the driver knocks on the door to ask for the engineer.  I explained that the engineers weren't coming until the following week,  to which the driver said he wasn't allowed to leave it without an engineer inspecting it and it should have been arranged. 
Anyway after lots of phone calls its agreed he can leave it without the engineer present. 
When he unloaded it two pallets became two double size pallets,  one single and a whole load of frame work. Thats my workshop out of action until installation! 

The next issue was radio silence about ETA for scaffolders even though I requested a rough ETA twice. They arrived at 11am as they had a 3 hour drive to get to us! Not using local scaffolding contractors will bite later in the saga.

Installation day all the guys turn up first thing and are brilliant.  They quickly realise that the roof has been dramatically miss measured ( Octopus dont do site inspections,  its done through Google earth and photos) and instead of all the panels fitting on 2 thirds of the roof they actually need the whole roof!
So they crack on installing what they can whilst trying to organise for the scaffolders to come back to extend the scaffolding.  I got the distinct impression this is a regular issue. 

Two days go by with no idea for myself or the installation team as to what is going on. So I contacted the person in charge of my installation to make a formal complaint about the lack of communication and to find out what an earth was going on as more time off would need organising yet we had literally no idea when anyone was due to turn up.

I got a response apologising,  logging my complaint and promising to get it sorted. 
I still hadn't had an update by the afternoon of the next day so I emailed again pointing out that it was disappointing that as my complaint was mainly about communication that I still wasn't receiving any.

Again I get an email apologising and telling me they had booked the scaffolders for the following day and they would let me know what day the installers would be back.

The scaffolders arrived ( i still didn't get an ETA even though this was promised second time around) but they tried to errect the scaffolding on the wrong side of the house! Its was only after strong resistance from my wife and lots of phone calls that they agreed to put it where it actually needed to go!

Then two days later im given a date nearly 3 weeks away for the rest of the installation.  This doesn't work for us as we will be away.  I point out that it needs to be finished and scaffolding down before we leave as this is a security issue for my property. 

The lady from Octopus agrees and promises to come back to me with new dates. She emails the following day to say the best they can do is the installation the day before we leave and they will try and book the scaffolders for the following day if we can arrange for someone to be at the property for the scaffolding to be removed. Bare in mind you dont get an ETA for the scaffolders so someone needs to be there from 7am just incase.

I agree that I can arrange this but im also worried there will be more issues and as I will be out of the country I won't be around to deal with them and also as stated I dont want the scaffolding to remain when im away. So I ask for some guarantees that they will complete the job in the time frame specified.

I received no response to this email so sent another to chase them up to which I received an out of office to say the contact had gone on annual leave!  There was another contact mentioned in the out of office to get in touch with if it was urgent. So I emailed that person yesterday morning as I need to know if I do need to organise someone to be at the property as its only just over a week away now. But what a surprise,  no response.

So i now dont know for sure what the plan is as its radio silence from Octopus.  Looking online this seems to be a big problem with Octopus and it surprises me that they get such high recommendations. So I completely agree with the OP that maybe Martin Lewis should reconsider his opinion of their customer service. 

They have been absolutely awful ( not the installers) and i would plead with anyone considering using them to go elsewhere as its incredibly stressful when they get it wrong, which it seems is quite often.