Ian and Sandra had some Solar panels and inverter etc. installed in 2014. Ian did his research before choosing which solution would be fitted, receiving some keenly priced quotes to some bonkers ones. The silly priced quoted by some of the company obviously assumed Ian hadn’t done any research beforehand. When you are quoted £9K for a system others quoted around £6K for, you know something is very much wrong, follow the common advice get 3 quotes or more and don’t always take the lowest.
Having the panels fitted in 2014 meant that Ian and Sandra get the benefit of the Feed in Tariff (F.I.T.) and the electricity that the panels generate. When we had the panels fitted we had some LG 280 watt panels fitted. The inverter was a SolarRiver, the company went bump a few years later, so much for the guarantee.
Fast forward to 2022, Ian decided that we could use some more solar panels due to the energy price volatility, so he started to do some research and bought some components to install in the house, such as an additional Consumer unit, as the existing one was already full. Due to the current inverter ( Single phase String inverter ) being a single point of failure, Ian decided any additional panels would use micro inverters, being a bit of techie there was only solution considered – Enphase. Part of the decision to go the micro inverter route was financial, i.e. as funds become available more panels can be added after DNO approval. Microinverters are better at dealing with ‘shading’ compared to String Inverters, on a String Inverter configuration if one panel is affected, this in turn can reduce the output of all the solar panels on that DC line.
Ian installed an additional meter to track the additional solar generation, along with trunking inside leading to an AC isolator then into the new consumer unit, which still needs to be connected to the main one in the house.
