Who pays for scaffolding when SolarEdge optimisers fail -

Who pays for scaffolding when SolarEdge optimisers fail?

Well the short answer is I did – partly.

Let me explain.

Recently I noticed one of my solar panels was not generating electricity in the same quantity that its adjacent panels were.

This at first I thought might be a shading issue as in the beginning months of January and February I do get some shading from a large tree in an adjacent garden. As the suns position moves with spring and summer this disappears so at first I was not concerned.

Over the next few weeks the level of generation slowed then stopped.

I then contacted the installer Totnes Energy.

Andrew was taking a sabbatical and sailing around the world on his yacht. He did start the process off of registering a case with SolarEdge.

It was at this time that suddenly a second optimiser started to fail much more rapidly than the first.

In a matter of a week it too had stopped generating.

This caused a flag on the SolarEdge monitoring platform and the two panels showed as black on the layout display.

After contacting Andrew again who was about to leave the Galapagos Islands heading for Easter Island I was told SolarEdge would send me out two new Optimisers in the post.

I have twenty solar panels on my roof and I was now concerned who would pay for the scaffolding and was it covered under warranty.

Guess who pays for scaffolding when SolarEdge optimisers fail?

After communications between Andrew and SolarEdge via email he established SolarEdge would pay the following:

First Optimiser £150
Second Optimiser £25
Scaffolding £200

Obviously as Andrew was the other side of the world he gave me the name of two companies he would recommend to fit the Optimisers. He also warned me the compensation quoted was unlikely to cover the total costs’

I then got in touch with SunGift Energy based in Exeter. I forwarded all my correspondence from Andrew and they took on the case.

They arranged a scaffolder who erected scaffolding for 3/4 of the back of the house. This was sufficient to reach the defective optimisers and SunGift duly came and replaced the parts.

The bottom line is that it did cost me £180 plus vat a total of £222 which means it will take me a few months longer in my plans to recoup the total outlay from the original installation.