I'm looking for recommendations for a provider/installer for a residential property in the Waikato. From my initial research I get the impression that many are greedy hard-sell franchises, which I don't want to deal with.
We have very good local electricians - would it be feasible to employ them to obtain and install? Or will we need a specialist installer?
I haven't obtained any quotes yet as I don't want to be hounded by salespeople.
(13-02-2024, 08:06 AM)Olive Wrote: [ -> ]I'm looking for recommendations for a provider/installer for a residential property in the Waikato. From my initial research I get the impression that many are greedy hard-sell franchises, which I don't want to deal with.
We have very good local electricians - would it be feasible to employ them to obtain and install? Or will we need a specialist installer?
I haven't obtained any quotes yet as I don't want to be hounded by salespeople.
We've got solar that was installed in two stages. The first was by a local company whose owner is more skilled in sales than technical ability and uses an electrical company to do the installs. That gave us a 5kW system that the 'sales' guy was unable to provide us with real time monitoring of the generation, export and consumption data. I got the feeling too that as I had reasonable PV knowledge from having had an installation at our last property and therefore a fairly good idea what I wanted the guy felt a bit challenged by my requests.
Late last year we had an
upgrade done which resulted in 9.5kW of panels feeding an 8.2kW inverter and a 7kW EV wall charger added. This work was done by Solar One who are a local specialist solar installer with staff who have 10+years of experience working in solar throughout Europe and Australia. Despite our upgrade being technically challenging the guys managed the install skillfully and without issue, including firmware changes to the inverter to solve problems caused by the state of our local rural grid infrastructure. These guys absolutely know their stuff. Also we haven't gone for a battery as Solar One advised against it due to our well focussed self consumption model. Our intention is to use our Nissan Leaf EV for that purpose once Vehicle to Grid (V2G) becomes a viable option here.
For you to get the best from your solar you need to be able to monitor how it is functioning so that you can use your generation most economically otherwise you're flying blind and potentially losing generation to grid export at a fraction of the value you can gain from it if you use it and thereby offset electricity that costs you full price to import from your power supplier.
From our experience two suggestions for anyone considering solar are to hunt out the best provider in your area, in our case Octopus, and to maximise self consumption the best single component in our setup is a
Paladin diverter which monitors your properties in/out mains flow and turns on your hot water cylinder to 'soak up' that 'excess electricity, essentially using your HWC as a battery.
Our account with Octopus has been in credit for the last 3 months and we don't expect to move into debit until about May. As our consumption includes charging 2 EVs exclusively from solar, pumped water (rural property), 2x 700L chest freezers and typical home usage we're well pleased with our set up and are heading towards a <10 year payback on its cost, without factoring in the fuel savings resulting from running EVs compared to ICEVs.
From Solar One's website
this link to industry affiliated installers in your area may be useful.
I'm happy to answer any queries you have on your solar journey
(13-02-2024, 08:46 AM)harm_less Wrote: [ -> ] (13-02-2024, 08:06 AM)Olive Wrote: [ -> ]I'm looking for recommendations for a provider/installer for a residential property in the Waikato. From my initial research I get the impression that many are greedy hard-sell franchises, which I don't want to deal with.
We have very good local electricians - would it be feasible to employ them to obtain and install? Or will we need a specialist installer?
I haven't obtained any quotes yet as I don't want to be hounded by salespeople.
We've got solar that was installed in two stages. The first was by a local company whose owner is more skilled in sales than technical ability and uses an electrical company to do the installs. That gave us a 5kW system that the 'sales' guy was unable to provide us with real time monitoring of the generation, export and consumption data. I got the feeling too that as I had reasonable PV knowledge from having had an installation at our last property and therefore a fairly good idea what I wanted the guy felt a bit challenged by my requests.
Late last year we had an upgrade done which resulted in 9.5kW of panels feeding an 8.2kW inverter and a 7kW EV wall charger added. This work was done by Solar One who are a local specialist solar installer with staff who have 10+years of experience working in solar throughout Europe and Australia. Despite our upgrade being technically challenging the guys managed the install skillfully and without issue, including firmware changes to the inverter to solve problems caused by the state of our local rural grid infrastructure. These guys absolutely know their stuff. Also we haven't gone for a battery as Solar One advised against it due to our well focussed self consumption model. Our intention is to use our Nissan Leaf EV for that purpose once Vehicle to Grid (V2G) becomes a viable option here.
For you to get the best from your solar you need to be able to monitor how it is functioning so that you can use your generation most economically otherwise you're flying blind and potentially losing generation to grid export at a fraction of the value you can gain from it if you use it and thereby offset electricity that costs you full price to import from your power supplier.
From our experience two suggestions for anyone considering solar are to hunt out the best provider in your area, in our case Octopus, and to maximise self consumption the best single component in our setup is a Paladin diverter which monitors your properties in/out mains flow and turns on your hot water cylinder to 'soak up' that 'excess electricity, essentially using your HWC as a battery.
Our account with Octopus has been in credit for the last 3 months and we don't expect to move into debit until about May. As our consumption includes charging 2 EVs exclusively from solar, pumped water (rural property), 2x 700L chest freezers and typical home usage we're well pleased with our set up and are heading towards a <10 year payback on its cost, without factoring in the fuel savings resulting from running EVs compared to ICEVs.
From Solar One's website this link to industry affiliated installers in your area may be useful.
I'm happy to answer any queries you have on your solar journey
Thank you very much for all that information. I've just embarked on what is clearly a big learning curve and will no doubt have questions in the future.
Plenty to learn for sure. This guy's Youtube channel has some of the most accessible info on solar that I've seen and is well presented for novices. UK based but most of his content is equally relevant to NZ.
Thank you! That's a really clear introduction and after watching it I feel better equipped to start learning more..
AA Solar are good to deal with
(28-02-2024, 09:44 PM)nzoomed Wrote: [ -> ]AA Solar are good to deal with
Looks like AA are Auckland based. Olive was looking for an installer in Waikato. The link I provided above is able to be filtered for region.
This solar
'Jargon buster' came through from our electricity supplier today. Handy information for novices.
(29-02-2024, 10:40 AM)harm_less Wrote: [ -> ] (28-02-2024, 09:44 PM)nzoomed Wrote: [ -> ]AA Solar are good to deal with
Looks like AA are Auckland based. Olive was looking for an installer in Waikato. The link I provided above is able to be filtered for region.
Yes they are based in Auckland but can ship anyware and have a good amount of contacts nationwide to put you in touch with a local installer.
They can design your system to your specs and ship you everything you will need too.
(01-03-2024, 09:00 AM)nzoomed Wrote: [ -> ] (29-02-2024, 10:40 AM)harm_less Wrote: [ -> ]Looks like AA are Auckland based. Olive was looking for an installer in Waikato. The link I provided above is able to be filtered for region.
Yes they are based in Auckland but can ship anyware and have a good amount of contacts nationwide to put you in touch with a local installer.
They can design your system to your specs and ship you everything you will need too.
I would be very wary about dealing with a solar designer/installer who wasn't local. There are so many influencing factors involved in getting the best results from a PV installation with many of them not immediately identified without an onsite inspection.
The link I provided above will direct a prospective solar customer to an installer locally which makes more sense than dealing through a chain of supply and installation entities.
As an example of this during the installation of our upgrade of our system last September an installation fault was identified in the earlier original array which will eventually result in 2 of the earlier panels failing. Despite repeated requests for the original provider (who subcontracts his installs out) we have yet to see any rectification of the bad workmanship involved, or any contact from the installation contractor.
(02-03-2024, 08:34 AM)harm_less Wrote: [ -> ] (01-03-2024, 09:00 AM)nzoomed Wrote: [ -> ]Yes they are based in Auckland but can ship anyware and have a good amount of contacts nationwide to put you in touch with a local installer.
They can design your system to your specs and ship you everything you will need too.
I would be very wary about dealing with a solar designer/installer who wasn't local. There are so many influencing factors involved in getting the best results from a PV installation with many of them not immediately identified without an onsite inspection. The link I provided above will direct a prospective solar customer to an installer locally which makes more sense than dealing through a chain of supply and installation entities.
As an example of this during the installation of our upgrade of our system last September an installation fault was identified in the earlier original array which will eventually result in 2 of the earlier panels failing. Despite repeated requests for the original provider (who subcontracts his installs out) we have yet to see any rectification of the bad workmanship involved, or any contact from the installation contractor.
Most definitely, I would work with a local installer, make recommendations and then buy direct, thats where the savings are made.
Biggest issue is there is alot of local companies, particularly electricians who slap on huge margins if you buy through them because they do the labour and supply the parts where they add markup.
A friend of mine got ripped off on batteries recently, when they could have got something better for a lower price if they shopped around.
Not saying AA solar is necessarily the way to go either, there are several outlets that are importing gear at a good price to the consumer.