Solar System Review: Bart, Wellington, Wellington

Review Date: 07/11/2022

Size: 11.7

Running for: 1 week

Expected return on investment: 10%

Expected pay back period: 10

Comments on the installation: "It took 5 days to get everything installed, though to be fair we installed two systems. They are yet to return to fix one of the roof penetrations as they went through a lap join which is guaranteed to leak to a custom flashing is to be made and installed to address this. I will not need to pay for the balance of the system until this work is completed (which is as it should be, so that is nice)."

Comments on the system performance: "It has produced roughly what I expected. I'm using SolCast to generate an expected output against which I can benchmark my output. So fair it's pretty good...."

Advice: "The process for installing solar is a major pain in the proverbial as the installation approach can be extremely drawn out. Once your panels are installed and commissioned they cannot be operated until they are "inspected" but the inspection cannot be booked until *after* the install is completed. If you engage a company that has their own (job independent) inspector this can be done immediately or with a day or two, otherwise there is a delay of a week or so for the request to get to the inspector and for them to call to make a time to do the checks, and that can then be 1 - 3 weeks out....so inspection can take as long as month from commissioning leaving your panels as an expensive roof ornament as you will need to pay for the completed installation eventhough you can't use them. In our case inspection took 2.5 weeks and the inspector was onsite for exactly 7 minutes, 37 seconds to check both systems. Then you get to the nightmare that is the meter change - there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why this cannot be scheduled immediately upon paying your deposit and completed PRIOR to the panels even being installed as the meter works like a regular meter when the sun isn't shining. But no. This cannot be requested until AFTER the system is commissioned - so a delay to get the request from the installer to the power company, a further delay for the power company to call you to confirm the details, then a delay for the power company to pass it on to the meter company, an 8 wait for the metering company to call to make a time, and then the time they give you? Six weeks away! So from the point of commissioning to the export meter going in will be more than EIGHT weeks....which is hopeless. Silver lining is that Octopus will pay for your solar credits in the absence of a meter if you can prove your generated output....less self consumption obviously presumably based on historical consumption (in my case I can measure the returned energy exactly so this will be straightforward). Recommended changes: Inspection and meter change should be booked early and in the case of the meter done in advance; yes, in some cases the inspection will need to be rebooked and some customers may experience a delay, but that's better than every customer waiting weeks. As for the meter change...what a shambles. "