Solar PV installers - what are the questions i should be asking?

[vimto-kid]

Hi,

I've got a company coming to do a survey ready for a quote for PV on Tuesday afternoon.

I have a couple of questions:

Firstly, what are the key questions i should be asking the company?

Secondly, how easy is it to add additional PV panels to an existing system? (I have a limited budget and i am considering splitting my initial budget between solar water heating and PV panels, but would like to install aditional PV capacity at a later stage).

Thanks for your help

[EcoEnvironments]

As a company that installs PV, Wind and Solar thermal etc it helps us when clients have an idea on what they are looking to achieve and why. Is it energy cost reduction, part of a carbon reduction or ISO14001 programme, a business/marketing activity? 

But you should be asking about their experience, why they recommend the system that they do, are they MCS accredited (even if you aren't/can't get grant funding) MCS accredited companies go through a lot to gain and maintain that accreditation.

Also, it is not so simple to add solar PV panels at a later date, systems are designed specifically, the inverter is chosen for each application, adding more panels later may not fit the inverter you have, you may need to have another inverter (and added cost) for add more later. 

Any more questions feel free to post here

[vimto-kid]

Hi,

thanks for your quick reply. Just to clarify on the inverter point - if i deliberately oversize this initially, is that going to be a problem?

Also, do the additional pv cells simply plug together?

cheers for your help