Frequently asked questions

It depends on how much electricity you use and when you use it. As a planning figure, roughly 120 units of monthly consumption per kW of system. The sizing estimator applies that to your own bill or meter readings, and an engineer verifies it against the site before any proposal.

Three separate things share that word. The manufacturer's product warranty covers defects in the modules, inverter and battery. The manufacturer's performance warranty covers module output over time. Workmanship is the installer's own commitment on the installation itself. We register the manufacturer warranties in your name and hand over the paperwork, and the workmanship terms are stated in your quotation rather than promised verbally.

During the day, yes, if it is sized for them. Running air conditioning at night is a battery question rather than a solar one, and it is an expensive one — cooling is among the heaviest loads a household has, and backing it up multiplies the storage required. If air conditioning has to run through outages, that belongs in the first conversation, because it changes the system rather than the settings.

Yes, and on those sites the electrical scope is often larger than the solar scope: LT panels, protection coordination, earthing, load balancing across phases and power-factor correction. We take that work on with or without an array attached to it.

Rarely completely. Solar offsets consumption while the sun is up. Evening and overnight use still draws from the grid unless batteries are included, and most connections retain fixed charges regardless of consumption.

Because a credible price depends on the roof, the mounting structure, the condition of the existing electrical installation, the equipment selected and the scope included. A headline figure per kW hides all of that and usually gets revised upward later.

The survey establishes usable roof area, shading through the day, roof structure, cable routes, and the condition of the existing board, protection and earthing. It is what turns an indicative size into a real design. It does not commit you to proceeding, and we would rather tell you at that stage that the answer is not solar than sell you a system that will disappoint.

Only if the system is designed for it. A standard grid-tied system shuts down during an outage as a mandatory safety measure. A hybrid system with batteries keeps selected circuits running.

Modules are typically warranted for decades with a gradual decline in output, and inverters have a shorter service life than modules. Actual longevity depends as much on installation quality, mounting and maintenance as on the modules themselves.

Sometimes, and it is much cheaper when the system was designed with it in mind. Retrofitting storage onto a straightforward grid-tied system usually means changing the inverter and reworking the distribution board, because the essential circuits have to be separated before anything can back them up. If storage is a possibility within a few years, say so at design stage — allowing for it costs little then and a great deal later.

Less, but rarely nothing — a heavily overcast day typically produces a fraction of a clear one, and light cloud costs less than people expect. What matters is the month rather than the day: generation is lowest in winter and through the wettest weeks, which is why a system should be sized against twelve months of consumption rather than a single bill.

Yes. The connection phase determines inverter selection, how the array is arranged, and how load is balanced across the installation. On a three-phase supply an unbalanced installation causes problems that are then blamed on the solar system. It is one of the first things we confirm, and the estimator asks for it.

Not if the structure and the penetrations are done properly. The risks are real and specific: fixings into a roof that was not assessed, penetrations that are not sealed and later leak, ballast that the roof was never designed to carry, and drainage blocked by a badly planned layout. All four are survey questions, which is why we will not quote a mounting structure without seeing the roof.

Periodic cleaning, inspection of mounting and terminations, checks on inverter status and protection devices, and a comparison of actual generation against expected output. Without that comparison, a partial failure can go unnoticed for months.

Yes. The first visit is an assessment of what is installed and its condition, because we will not take responsibility for a system we have not inspected.

The installation itself is usually a matter of days for a domestic system and longer for commercial work, but the honest answer is a range set by system size, the mounting structure, roof access, and whether the existing board or earthing needs correcting first. Where net metering is involved, the application, inspection and meter change run on the distribution company's schedule rather than ours. We state a schedule before work starts and tell you ourselves when something slips.

Usually you would not, without checking — which is why monitoring and a documented expectation matter. Compare generation against the same month a year earlier rather than against last month, and treat a sudden step down as a fault rather than as weather. A gradual decline is normally soiling; an abrupt one is a string offline, a tripped device or an inverter derating.

We produce the compliant design and documentation and support the application through inspection and meter installation. The application itself is made in the site owner's name.

It is worth most to a site that generates a large surplus while nobody is using it — a typical home, or premises that close at the weekend. It is worth least where consumption already coincides with generation, because that energy is being used directly rather than exported. The shape of your consumption decides it, not the size of the system.

The application is made against the connection, so it has to be in the name the connection is registered in. Where a property has been inherited, rented, or the meter is in a relative's name, that has to be resolved before the application rather than during it. It is one of the most common reasons an otherwise complete submission stalls.