Solar PV upgrades being sold by pushy sales calls

Over the last year, I have found a plethora of Companies have started hard sales campaigns to sell  products or services to existing Solar PV owners. This has not really been helped along by the availability of databases that can be purchased detailing solar owners contact data, making it so much easier for them to get in contact.

Many of you existing solar owners will have had calls or letters from organisations proposing to make your system work far better than it currently does. While most of the products are good,  in most cases here, it is the selling that is suspect, along with the highly inflated prices to go with it.

To give you a ‘heads up’ on current sales company’s promotions, I have compiled a short list below:

1    1) Solar Edge optimised systems. The technology works well to minimise shading problems on solar panels with some clever technology, and will boost generation for part shaded systems. However, the salesmen are indicating far higher gains, and a far higher price than an ‘honest’ company would charge. If your solar is in the clear and has no shading, the Solar Edge system will never pay for itself. A recent example I was told by a customer the dodgy salesman quoted £5400 for a system that should have been just £3000.

      2) Voltage Optimisers . For very few solar owners, their grid voltage is quite high, causing the inverter to shut down when it is sunny. For this 2% of people, a voltage optimizer will sort the problem, bringing the grid voltage down. Sales guys are selling them to just about anyone and at hugely inflated prices, ie £3000 instead of £500

      3)Maintenance Contracts. Many people are getting a misleading letter, telling them their solar installer is now out of business. That statement is not true for around 20% of people, so is being investigated by Trading Standards. This particular company (and I'm sure others too), are selling expensive maintenance contracts amounting to £250 a year. Your system will only need a 5 year check at best for around £100.  You can keep an eye on the panels being clean and your system is working in between times by yourself.

      3)A very naughty  company are even calling people to tell them someone is going to come and maintain the system for free as part of their warranty that is just about to expire. The maintenance will not end up free, as they will expect you to sign up for monthly payments or whatever they can get away with. In addition, as part of any solar warranty, there is never a maintenance included. Don’t be fooled!

There will be other scams and highly priced devices being sold over the phone, not only to Solar Owners, but to anyone. The best advice as always is never to buy anything from telephone sales.

If you would like some idea of pricing for Solar PV add on products, call us at rudgeenergy.co.uk