07/01/2014
Anonymous
Not sure if a company can be proven to be as woefully inept as this company has been through our young life with our solar implementation. Company was one of many we discussed our needs with and while price was obviously a contributing <br /><br />factor, the fact that they also were doing a solarize movement in several towns nearby with positive feedback contributed to our going with them. <br /><br />We outlined what we wanted through the sales process which was a consolidation of what we learned as to be a good package through all the contractors we met. The end result was a tracker unit with a SMA inverter. The inverter was very <br /><br />important to us as the SMA brand was built up by many of the contractors as being considered the best. In addition we went with what is widely considered the best panels on the market, at least in warranty, SunPower (yes they are <br /><br />expensive). The goal was a turn key operation that was warrantied for 20 years (10 for the tracker). Panels = 20 and Inverter with extended warranty = 20.<br /><br />During installation they delivered tracker to wrong town. I ended up being involved way more than a homeowner should be in this process. When it ended up being delivered they had to take it piece meal up my driveway and put it in rocky <br /><br />soil causing much of the painted surfaces to be chipped and starting to rust. Putting up the tower proved to be a bad experience as they not only put up rusted parts (they swapped with another tracker client in the area so I feel bad <br /><br />for that person) they attempted to install the incorrect inverter - an undersized and non SMA inverter. I immediately stopped the installation (recall importance of SMA in our contract with them) and once again found myself doing an <br /><br />immense amount of research and correspondence with solar manufacturers including the inverter they intended on using. The manufacturer stated that our production would be capped based on panels (refer to upgrading panels to get max <br /><br />production) and not an appropriate match. When confronted with this C-TEC stated that they found an issue with the sizing of the solar array long after the sales process that they took the liberty of changing without ever contacting us. <br /><br /> Their solution was to simply throw up an assembly that would not produce what we were paying for.<br />This was resolved after about a month and a half of back and forth with them resulting in an SMA inverter being installed and us paying for additional panels to get the proper match between inverter and panels. Once again I found myself <br /><br />doing an incredible amount of the work. We're paying tens of thousands of dollars, largest investment we've made besides home purchase, and we're doing the work for the folks we're paying. Months of delays from paying them tens of <br /><br />thousands of dollars and we eventually got operational.... so we thought.<br /><br />Not really, only partially operational as after all the pain and headache to date we now had a system that looked great but only produced two thirds of what it was supposed to. I spent a lot of time trying to convince C-TEC something <br /><br />was wrong. They even had the gaul to state that the shading in the area was to blame after we had spent thousands of dollars taking trees down to get a great line of sight which didn't sit well with me. While to their credit they sent <br /><br />their electrician to review and check it they found nothing wrong but there obviously was. As is evident throughout this process I was doing way more than I should have had to and reached out to CEFIA. One thing I neglected to mention <br /><br />earlier was that I was never provided a way to monitor the system earlier in the project so I had previously reached out to CEFIA and arranged to get this setup - I shouldn't have had to. During this setup process it was found that the <br /><br />hookups were reversed in the equipment thus their software was reporting negative production instead of positive. CEFIA stated they could modify their reporting to multiply it to become a positive number - a little odd to me but it <br /><br />worked for reporting purposes. <br /><br />CEFIA arranged for an independent solar consultant to come out and check the system. We had a great independent MA based solar guy come out and discovered our main production problem in a matter of minutes. There are three 'strings' <br /><br />that come into the inverter - 2 had the appropriate voltage, one had none. There was a string representing 1/3 our production that wasn't registering at the inverter - makes sense as the production we were getting was 2/3 of expected. <br /><br />In addition to the big finding there were alot of other items he noted as not being acceptable including how the panels were connected with their cables being severaly pulled at angles to get them to connect. He stated this is very bad <br /><br />for the connections as stress is put on them. <br /><br />With the verbal findings I reached out to C-TEC and they preferred to wait until the report came out. At this time I was no longer only working with a gentleman that represented himself as being part of the senior management but now <br /><br />also was working with a newly hired operations manager. It was determined that the operations manager and a crew would come out and try to resolve the issue. In the end putting less stress on the cables by using longer cables or <br /><br />lengtheners as recommended by third party inspector, resolved the problem with production. Its amazing what hooking up things the right way will do for production. Its too bad that the folks that came out that day forgot to turn on the <br /><br />breakers to get the tracker working again. At this point I was furious as to the ineptitude of simple things and refused to touch the tracker and C-TEC sent another tech out in the coming days to resolve the fact the system wasn't <br /><br />functioning due to the breakers not being set correctly. Happily ever after right...... WRONG!<br /><br />We made it several months, finally generating more electicity then we're using resulting in the desired connection fee only electrical bills. After the initial honeymoon period of checking the generation on a daily basis we stopped and <br /><br />only checked it when curiousity got the better of us. Guess what.... recently we found that while the assembly is functioning tracking the sun the inverter is not. For days now we've had no production, actually reports as negative <br /><br />production on the days where heat and humidity draws folks to air conditioning = higher electrical use = love to be generating our own.<br /><br />You won't believe it.... I called C-TEC and informed them of the issue, so much for them monitoring it and to their credit they arranged for a technician to come out and take a look at it the following day. My wife ensured her schedule <br /><br />would accomodate it and the tech showed up today which is why I've now chosen to compose this review now as it was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Tech shows up and looks at it and says, yep somethings wrong but I left <br /><br />my tools elsewhere so I'll have to reschedule. I didn't know smart phones replaced swear words with ***** when you spoke into them but for my wifes benefit it did. As surviving by working incredibly hard in the service industry myself <br /><br />I simply don't know how a company can operate with such ineptitude. At this point we're hoping to get it back and running while not burning through all our credits we've managed to push to electical company but the way things have been <br /><br />going and my faith in getting this resolved I believe the months of production will be for naught - THANK YOU C-TEC!<br /><br />Moral of the story: I wholeheartidly believe most solar contractors are focused on their sweet spot, roof mount systems. While C-TEC may debate this I believe they are rather limited in their skills with advanced configurations such as <br /><br />tracking systems if our experience is anything to judge it by. Regardless of the manner the panels are mounted (roof, ground, tracking, etc.) the core of the configuration is the same (Panels - inverter - electrical company) and one <br /><br />would think experience aside, the basics would be a strength of anyone. I find it mind boggling that anyone working in the industry that is supposed to be monitoring the system cannot detect or resolve, without third party inspectors, <br /><br />production issues and when scheduled to troubleshoot malfunctions, not have tools to do so (oh yeah tools... I'll finish with that). I assume its not their production so the caring isn't equal to the homeowners. <br /><br />In regards to tools.... the installers, when fixing the inverter issue and panels, left their tools on the tracker that ended up falling down the panels with their shart corners top to bottom. We were told if the panels suffered damage <br /><br />we'd see it in production and we'd resolve it that route. Wait I know....I should have put the tools back on the system then so the technician today could have used them!<br /><br />Lets hope for the sake of sanity this issue becomes a distant memory... its hard to be optimistic when faced with what we've been through.
Reviewer reply
07/02/2014
So on day two when the tech had the tools that any tech should carry in this industry he pronounced the inverter dead or actually "fried". Now were at the mercy of when the inverter will arrive at their office to then have someone come out and replace it. I'm glad there's a heat wave with 90+ high humidity going on as that will minimize any air conditioning and electrical consumption. <br />According to what I have read online failure of an inverter may often be tied to installation misconfiguration. If I were a betting man I'd lean towards that conclusion. We'll see how the replacement goes and how long it will be to get it done.
Reviewer reply
07/09/2014
So here we are over a week later still down and out. Received update late last week that Inverter was to be in for replacement on the 8th of July and it would be handled then. Expectation modified to the following day the 9th even though inverter was to be in on the 8th. Now received update on the day / time technician was to be onsite that it won't happen. Now we're being pushed out until the end of the week even though we're down and the part is sitting at their office. <br />My response was disappointment and a little lack of understanding how a broken system takes a back seat to anything else they have scheduled. The service company I work for has priority responses and broken / inoperable takes a back seat to no one particularly when all the hardware is available for resolution. Apparently not all service companies march to the same drummer.
Reviewer reply
08/01/2014
This update is long overdue but with vacation and other items this is one of my first opportunities to provide an update.<br /><br />On July 11th two tech's from C-TEC came out and swapped out the Inverter. They replaced the AC portion and left the wiring into the DC portion as it was. Ironically I was home that day with a sick child and I asked to be informed when they were done so I could look at the inverter to see what output / input it was receiving as it indicates that info as well as other information in a rotation basis.<br />When I did get the opportunity to review this I made the comment that while it was nice to see the system functional again it didn't look like it was producing the appropriate amount. The technician stated that it could be environmental and I pointed out it was a bright sunny day. We agreed that if it needs additional work it would be addressed later. My thought was that while I felt there was a production issue it had only been online for less than an hour and I should give it sufficient time to really do a good comparison of pre / post inverter failing.<br /><br />Vacation in between but still evidence of lack of production existed even though the days afterwards were not sunny days to get good numbers. Around this time I also reached out to a meteorologist in CT who provided me all the weather info for the past month to assist in doing an intelligent comparison based on production on a given day given the weather conditions. It was clear to us that we indeed had a production issue and it was EXACTLY back to our original 2/3 production amounts when the system first went into production.<br /><br />While on vacation we received a message at home from an owner of C-TEC, Mickey Toro having seen this review. Upon return from vacation I reached out to him and we have a productive conversation where I simply pointed out the facts and how I felt it was now up to us to figure out our solar issues. I had gone as far as purchasing electric meters designed for solar troubleshooting, etc. while on vacation. Mr. Toro indeed expressed how C-TEC wanted to get it right, which obviously is appreciated, and offered to send out a team to troubleshoot the system as soon as able. <br />Today, August 1st, these folks arrived at the house - my wife reported approximately six people. I was relieved to hear they were onsite. My wife conversed with Mr. Toro and he stated they would be there until the problem was identified or resolved. <br />Lets hope this issue is resolved, we get back to full production, and have a long run of enjoyment afterwards.<br /><br />One item that I do owe C-TEC is how polite and nice the technicians all seem to be. We've never had a problem with any individual as a person, just the way things have been addressed along the way.<br /><br />I'll post in the coming days after the ongoing work is performed.
Reviewer reply
08/06/2014
As indicated in prior post C-TEC came out on the 1st and worked on the tracker. During the time they were onsite I periodically refreshed our production site and I was pleased to see during one refresh full production again. The issue was identified to be a fuse that needed to be reset / replaced. I wish this had been part of the initial inverter replacement process but nonetheless it was now addressed and the functionality was restored. <br /><br />Mickey Toro conversed with my wife and myself about the process, identifying the fuse as the issue, etc. He also stated that to resolve the lack of monitoring issue they were ordering a chip to install in the tracker to allow the tracker manufacturer to receive daily production numbers. On trackers that do have this feature the manufacturer identifies issues and contacts C-TEC. I was pleased to hear about this but would have loved that to have been the case from day one. Mr. Toro also stated they would keep an eye on our production and to assist them to provide information we'd been using to track the system. We provided spreadsheets and many documents we'd been compiling over time. <br /><br />Today, August 6th, my wife informed me that C-TEC had been onsite and installed the chip. The production numbers only get pulled once a day to the tracker manufacturers site so we'll hopefully start to see data tomorrow for today.<br /><br />In summary this process seems to be winding down. The folks at C-TEC have, especially Mickey Toro, have been very on top of things and everything's been going the way one would have hoped from the beginning they would have.<br /><br />I will keep this post up for a while then see if there's a way to remove it but I wanted to hopefully document closure to this issue in the manner its been achieved.
Reviewer reply
11/16/2014
So here we go again. Its about 3 months later and we are down again. We reported the degradation in production several days ago and up to this point have had nothing other than someone swing by and check the shading and check the LCD of the inverter for operation.<br />I can't believe we're dealing with this again. We are down to 1/2 to at best 2/3 production. My best guess is that a fuse is in need of being replaced again. The person that did come out didn't even say goodbye or give any feedback to my wife who was waiting at home for them to talk to her after checking out the tracker. I got this tech's cell number and called and asked what they found out. Basically what I got was nothing. They stated its not a shading issue, nooooo really???? I asked if they did the obvious things like check the breaker and they stated no that they didn't do anything other than look at the tracker.<br />I contacted the owner of CTEC and stated my disbelief and insistence to speak with someone. Mickey Toro passed me to his solar tech Josh who did speak with me. He stated that our production in correct and in line with others in the area. They were comparing last year to now stating similarities. When I pointed out that last year we had a proven problem where we at most were getting 2/3 production as the basis of their thought nothing was wrong confirms my assertion that something indeed is wrong. We actually were producing MORE than now with that confirmed problem.<br />We are due to have another visit where they will hopefully address the problem. <br />I have much more to post but will do so time permitting.
Reviewer reply
01/19/2018
Its been a good amount of time since any update and to C-TEC's credit, we've had fairly consistent use of our tracker. Recently they checked in with us to see how things have been going and we agreed to update this review given we've had reliable operations over the past year. We're hopeful for continued operations! It was nice of them to check in with us.
Reviewer reply
05/02/2018
Perhaps the 1/19/2018 update was premature. Here's the most recent update. Inverter is dead. A portion of the inverter had already been replaced when a prior problem occurred. What has now come to light is that while the tracker / equipment was setup in 2013, when the portion of the inverter was replaced afterwards, the inverter was replaced with one manufactured in 2008, 5 years prior to when the system was installed originally. Now 10 years from that date of manufacture, the inverter needs to be replaced. What organization would replace a 2013 inverter with a 2008 one. As I mentioned to CTEC, its like buying a 2013 car, taking it in for service, leaving with a 2008 engine. What sense does that make... Shame on me for not more closely inspecting their past work, lesson learned. Should a consumer be in the position to have to do this?
Reviewer reply
05/03/2018
CTEC is working diligently on the issue and much of the blame, as CTEC has pointed out, is on SMA (Inverter) manufacturer for providing them with a 5 year old RMA model the first time the inverter was replaced. Lets hope the replacement process this time results in a newer unit that can provide the level of service / functionality expected.