How worried should I be?

[DanB]

Gavin,

There's no way I'm doing anything that involves a spark, or really testing anything myself. I don't know enough about what I'm doing, and also I don't want to give the company any get-out that I could have caused any of the problems by fiddling.

I wrote another even more firmly-worded letter at the weekend to the company to insist that they address this problem or I would take things further. I suggested I would get an independent in, and also report them to TS, NAPIT and REA... That seemed to do the trick, as I got a phone call this morning and they are coming to investigate on Saturday. It's difficult to know whether I trust them to address everything, but I feel obliged to give them a shot, and now I know a lot more about the whole PV game (mainly thanks to everyone here!) I think I should be able to determine whether they are honestly able to fix things.

 

[Vegelen]

It's difficult to know whether I trust them to address everything, but I feel obliged to give them a shot, and now I know a lot more about the whole PV game (mainly thanks to everyone here!) I think I should be able to determine whether they are honestly able to fix things.

Dan, An employee of this company left a dangerous installation at your house and signed it off.
It was left in a state that would worry any qualified spark or individual.
In normal circumstances it is better to give companies the benefit of the doubt to correct their mistakes, in preference to going in all guns blazing, but in this instance this installation was left in a negligent state.
Whoever left it has a mind that isnt working properly or they dont care about how they left it.
Such an individual is a liability to this industry.
Such individuals will cause harm to other people unless stopped.
You are being extremely nice, but your kindness is a threat to other peoples health.
You need to wake up and realise the implications to other people beyond yourself.
You can follow the path of least resistance and let this company correct a very poor installation and let the installer get away with his shoddy work, but he / she will be passed onto someone else.
The more individuals with this mentallity are allowed to get away with it the more they will do it. You need to stop being nice and "wake up".
Get an independent inspector to assess this work. Get a report made. Tell the authorities to inspect it. Let the company deal with the fallout from it.
If your property had burnt down or someone had got seriously hurt, your mentallity would be different.

 

[FB.]

....they are coming to investigate on Saturday. It's difficult to know whether I trust them to address everything.....

If I'm free at the time they're coming, I can drop in to ask difficult questions where necessary; you can remain on speaking terms with them and let me ruffle their feathers with difficult questions if any need to be asked.

 

[FB.]

.....It's difficult to know whether I trust them to address everything......

After they've finished, if everything looks right, and if the array(s) functions within expected ranges relative to other nearby arrays (such as mine), then it's likely to have been addressed.

I can stand beside my inverter and chat over the phone to let you know how much I'm outputting and you can extrapolate that to approximate for your array, based on the number of panels and a slight variation in azimuth.

 

[Orffyreus]

They are not exactly rushing round to sort it out but see what they have to say, probably be best to get things in writing too.

It will be interesting to see what the actual situation is with the panels/setup please let us know how you get on Dan, best of luck.

 

[Joeacox]

I would be defiantly concerned. Especially the exposed wire.

 

[Orffyreus]

I see from your output that they have been and solved the issue with performance Dan. Hopefully all the other issues were rectified too.

 

[DanB]

FB -thanks for the offer. I nearly called on you because I thought I wasn't going to be here this morning, and my wife was going to have to deal with everything, but my plans changed at the last minute!

Was a bit surprised when the same electrician turned up today to fix the problems... He looked a little sheepish, but went with the 'I heard you're having a few problems' line when he arrived. I explained all the concerns, and he said he was sure it was no problem and he could fix them. He went into the loft to look at the inverter, and took about ten minutes before coming down again and saying there had been 'connector in the inverter which should have been connected in the factory but hadn't', which had meant the first string hadn't been working. He was at least prepared to accept that it wasn't the easiest to check and commission the panels originally (ie. when it was DARK!).

He then took the import meter and tails apart, and replaced the chewed cables. It's no great surprise that the new cables appear to have the grey additional insulation on! I did manage to get a quick look at the tails he took off, and although it's a rubbish photo, sure enough there was a lot more damage under the sticky tape:



As soon as he'd finished, the output was pretty much transformed - it was a relatively sunny morning, and the panels were putting out 2kw straight away - far in excess of anything we've achieved so far. He said that the garage and two of the panels from the roof are on one string, and the other eight are on the other.

Sadly, later in the morning the serial cable was knocked out of the monitoring PC and I didn't notice, therefore we don't have a full day of data, so I'm hoping for sunshine tomorrow! Once I have a few days in the bank, I can compare with FB and see how we're getting on

On the whole he was pleasant and polite, but wholly unapologetic. He did leave with a 'if you have any other problems then don't hesitate to call the office'! I imagine it's fairly obvious by now that I won't hesitate to do that!

So I think I have a correctly set-up and safe system working now. Thinking on whether to take the advice of some here and report them in any case due to the shoddy workmanship the first time around.

 

[Marvo]

Wow, I haven't been on this thread for a while and I see it's been very active. Great to hear you eventually got some remedy from the installers. If they've addressed all your issues and your performance is what it should be then to be honest I'd just let sleeping dogs lie. Unless you have plenty of time on your hands and you want to jump through countless bureaucratic hoops for probably no gain then reporting them won't achieve much.

 

[Gavin A]

As soon as he'd finished, the output was pretty much transformed - it was a relatively sunny morning, and the panels were putting out 2kw straight away - far in excess of anything we've achieved so far. He said that the garage and two of the panels from the roof are on one string, and the other eight are on the other.

So I think I have a correctly set-up and safe system working now. Thinking on whether to take the advice of some here and report them in any case due to the shoddy workmanship the first time around.

don't you have 10 east facing and 6 south facing panels?

this set up would mean that you'll have one string of 8 panels that's properly optimised, the other string will always under perform as the peak voltage point of the 2 different orientated arrays will be different.

This is not acceptable unless you'd agreed to this in advance.

 

[Gary K]

don't you have 10 east facing and 6 south facing panels?

this set up would mean that you'll have one string of 8 panels that's properly optimised, the other string will always under perform as the peak voltage point of the 2 different orientated arrays will be different.

This is not acceptable unless you'd agreed to this in advance.

I would query how this is going to work effectively. They must be aware that this is not the way to go as you have already stated that you would need two inverters. If you have the original quote in writing, I would suggest that you insist that they honour it.

 

[FB.]

........it was a relatively sunny morning, and the panels were putting out 2kw straight away.....

At the moment, on the bright sunny mornings, my 3.75kWp ESE 40'pitch are peaking around 2.25 kW output and managing just under 10kWh total for the day.

In the dark days of December the peak in direct sun was about 1.75kW. It'll be about April before they reach the full 3.6-3.7kW output. In mid-summer the output will often fail to go above 3kW due to the panels getting hot.

Feel free to message me to ask what kind of peak power readings I'm getting on bright mornings.

A couple of random pictures of my inverter screen are below, to give some ideas of what to expect. The notches on the left axis are 1kW and the top of the chart is 3.6kW
- you may just about be able to see the dates of "24 Apr" and "24 June" ".
The first was a cloudy morning and sunny afternoon - not much use for ESE-facing panels.
The second was a day with a mix of sun and cloud - you can see the steep drops in output as the sun was blocked. You can also see the left-shift of the chart due to the sun position relative to the panels.

 

[FB.]

don't you have 10 east facing and 6 south facing panels?

He does, from what I can see.
But I can't see anywhere on this topic where the string voltages had been ascertained to see whether it was a string of ten and a string of six, or whether it's two strings of eight.
Nor have I seen exactly the Vmp (maximum power voltage) of the panels he has and how that works with his inverter.

 

[Gary K]

FB -thanks for the offer. I nearly called on you because I thought I wasn't going to be here this morning, and my wife was going to have to deal with everything, but my plans changed at the last minute!

Was a bit surprised when the same electrician turned up today to fix the problems... He looked a little sheepish, but went with the 'I heard you're having a few problems' line when he arrived. I explained all the concerns, and he said he was sure it was no problem and he could fix them. He went into the loft to look at the inverter, and took about ten minutes before coming down again and saying there had been 'connector in the inverter which should have been connected in the factory but hadn't', which had meant the first string hadn't been working. He was at least prepared to accept that it wasn't the easiest to check and commission the panels originally (ie. when it was DARK!).

He then took the import meter and tails apart, and replaced the chewed cables. It's no great surprise that the new cables appear to have the grey additional insulation on! I did manage to get a quick look at the tails he took off, and although it's a rubbish photo, sure enough there was a lot more damage under the sticky tape:

View attachment 17141

As soon as he'd finished, the output was pretty much transformed - it was a relatively sunny morning, and the panels were putting out 2kw straight away - far in excess of anything we've achieved so far. He said that the garage and two of the panels from the roof are on one string, and the other eight are on the other.

Sadly, later in the morning the serial cable was knocked out of the monitoring PC and I didn't notice, therefore we don't have a full day of data, so I'm hoping for sunshine tomorrow! Once I have a few days in the bank, I can compare with FB and see how we're getting on

On the whole he was pleasant and polite, but wholly unapologetic. He did leave with a 'if you have any other problems then don't hesitate to call the office'! I imagine it's fairly obvious by now that I won't hesitate to do that!

So I think I have a correctly set-up and safe system working now. Thinking on whether to take the advice of some here and report them in any case due to the shoddy workmanship the first time around.

Yes it has!!!

 

[Gavin A]

He does, from what I can see.
But I can't see anywhere on this topic where the string voltages had been ascertained to see whether it was a string of ten and a string of six, or whether it's two strings of eight.
Nor have I seen exactly the Vmp (maximum power voltage) of the panels he has and how that works with his inverter.

he just stated that this is what the installer / spark just told him they'd done.

also a string of 10 wouldn't work.

ps I suspect he had reverse polarity on the string that wasn't working, which the spark didn't want to own up to.

 

[FB.]

He said that the garage and two of the panels from the roof are on one string, and the other eight are on the other.

Ah, the problem with long threads is that it's easy to miss something.

8+8 is not satisfactory.
A string of panels is only as effective as its worst link.
The two on the roof will be hindered in the mornings by the lack of power flow through those on the garage, while those on the garage will be hindered in the afternoon by the lack of power flow through those on the roof.

Even if it does work, the bypass diodes will have to be active for considerable amounts of time during the day on bright days, in order to allow the power to bypass the "virtually shaded" cells caused by different sun aspects. It may result in premature failure of those diodes.

 

[Earthstore]

So how did the installer complete the install to comply with the regulations if it was dark, he did not return in the morning, so what figures would he put on his test sheet?

 

[Gavin A]

So how did the installer complete the install to comply with the regulations if it was dark, he did not return in the morning, so what figures would he put on his test sheet?

0 Voc
0 Ioc
0 W/m2
polarity check N
?

This is the sort of rubbish that MCS / real should be chasing up rather than dreaming up ever more complex tick box exercises for us to participate in.