(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