Solar panels: Thousands of customers complain - UK

[OnlinePoker]

Thousands of people who bought solar panels have complained to a financial watchdog that they are not bringing them the returns they were promised.

Many people took out loans to pay for panels on the promise they would save thousands of pounds in electricity costs and make money generating power.

They say they have not had the expected savings, and the Financial Services Ombudsman has had 2,000 complaints.

Barclays Bank has put aside £38m to deal with potential claims.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-49566130

[Tiggeroshii]

1. Weird. Everybody I know in the US has had a successful experience with solar

[garybeck]

2. I'm a solar installer. it's not rocket science

you make realistic estimates to the customer, based on real life production from existing systems. here in vermont, a general rule of thumb is that for every 1KW of solar array, you get about 1,000 KWH production per year, if there is not a lot of shading.

Here in the US and I'm sure abroad as well, there are many bad vendors who either don't know what they're doing, or they over-hype the technology, make overly-optimistic estimates of production, and even install solar systems in bad locations where there is shading. I don't want to name names but Tesla/Solar City is not one of the good companies, I have experienced several horror stories from their customers.

so let the buyer beware, like in any industry. get multiple quotes. compare them. if one is significantly better than the others, there is probably a reason.

[greenman3610]

3. sounds like a single company was giving people bad results

[OnlinePoker]

4. A couple of them named in the article.

I'm wondering if they sold them on the rated power production of the panel, not the actual capacity factor. In the UK, that's around 10%.

[jpak]

6. The panels worked as they should - the bankers were con men and told lies

Nice try.

but

Fail

[jpak]

5. The solar panels worked well, as expected - the bank crooks lied to people

more for the article.....

Barclays - bunch of con men...

<snip>


Brian Thompson from Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, told BBC Inside Out he was contacted by a salesman for PV Solar UK but told him he did not want to take a loan on as he was preparing for retirement.

He said he was told the move would provide money towards his pension, which persuaded him, and he took out a loan with Barclays of more than £10,000 over 10 years.

Mr Thompson said the payments he was getting back from the power his solar panels sent to the National Grid did not correspond with what he was told.

"I had to dip into my savings which I was putting away for retirement to pay the loan off. To me it was lies," he said.

<more>

[Finishline42]

8. Sounds like the crap SolarCity was doing

Tell them anything to close the deal. Creates bad press but who cares - you make you commission.

We always said that it takes 10 people saying good things about you to counter one person saying bad. These days with social media make that 100-1.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Not every House is suitable for

Solar Installs. We have been Solar for six months and are more than surprised at our savings. And we are only allowed to do a 88% put back into the Grid here in Nevada thanks to the Koch Brothers Lobbyist control of Utility Commission.