A Solar Installation case study from one of our applicants in their own words…
We have a three-bedroom detached house and started looking for solar installers in July 2021. Through Zero Chippenham we obtained quotes from 1World Solar and Solarsense. Both were similar figures and showed us prices with and without batteries. We questioned them both about the possibility of the battery providing islanding or power during a grid outage. Neither could provide convincing options, so we decided to leave the battery out of the order this time and save some money.
In the end we went with 1WorldSolar as they were more responsive and knowledgable when we asked questions. The install in December 2021 went smoothly, with little disruption. The scaffolding was left up for a week or two due to one of the workers getting covid, but this didn’t cause us any trouble. The panels worked very well and we were pleased to be getting a small amount of power even on the darkest winter days. The only way we had initially to understand what was being generated was to see the effect on our smart meter, which would show a negative value. We asked 1WorldSolar about this and they sold us an additional “Dongle” for around £40 which plugged into the GroWatt inverter in the loft. Once connected to our WiFi, through a rather awkward process, this allowed us to see on a web dashboard, all our recent generation. However, the interface was rather awkward as was the web app. After only a few months the Dongle stopped working and while 1WorldSolar said they would replace it, they’ve stopped communicating with us, so we sort of shrugged and stopped worrying about the exact values we’re generating.
Still, the solar panels are still doing a great job 18 months later and have been especially useful now that we have an air source heat pump with it’s additional electricity consumption.