06/27/2018
Anonymous
SES was the installer for our 7.92 kW rooftop PV system that entered service in February 2018. I have since recommended them to neighbors and co-workers, and recommend them here without reservation. SES stood out among the three companies that came to our house for a site visit and submitted an offer. Rich from SES obviously knew his stuff. I accompanied him as he measured our (nearly flat) roof and came up with a probable layout. We discussed where to bring the line down from the roof and where to place the inverter. He looked at our circuit panel and concluded it was probably fine to accommodate the system. He later sent two detailed designs with shade analyses, equipment lists and quotes, and economic/cost recovery analyses. By contrast, one of the other companies (a reputable DC installer; just with a different approach) sent a salesman who begged off on all system design questions and was instead focused on getting our signatures on a contract. The tendered contract had a preliminary design that was physically too large for our roof and assumed replacement of our circuit panel. I pointed out these issues, and the salesperson explained we had to sign a contract to get the actual design, and could cancel within three days after getting the real offer. I reluctantly signed, so that we could get a third competing offer; thought better of it overnight, and cancelled first thing the next morning. The only good to come out of that offer was learning about the latest high-wattage LG panels. I asked Rich if SES could design our system using those panels, and they did—the third detailed offer (with a price-tag thousands below the other LG-based offer) submitted by SES before we signed a contract. We contracted with SES in November 2017. The permitting and interconnection processes proceeded without any hitch. Lisa at SES worked well with the DC permitting folks to resolve their questions and minor issues. We got our permits and notice to proceed in January 2018, and SES installed the system in early February 2018. The SES installation crew was professional and polite, and the installed system was rock-solid on our standing-seam metal roof, with the interconnecting cables all nicely arranged and contained. The electrical work was well done, and SES ran a cable through our floor to connect the inverter directly to our internet router. All well and good, deserving of a recommendation—but what happened after installation shows that SES absolutely has to be on your short-list if you need a solar installer in Maryland or DC. Our small roof includes three commercial-grade, pyramid-style glass skylights, each with a supporting frame projecting a foot or so above the roof. It turned out that those structures shaded about 8-12 inches of three panels in late winter/early spring, enough to cut their output well below the other panels. One of the three panels also had a number of days of zero output. After some emails back and forth, and some internal analysis and discussion at SES, they decided to come back and disassemble and reinstall the entire array and supporting rails. A two-person crew came and worked a full day, just to move the entire system 12 inches north and get those three panels out of the part-shade from the skylights. After completing that work, the crew was on the phone with the SES construction manager for nearly an hour to trouble-shoot the worst-performing panel, eventually identifying a bad optimizer, which SES replaced on a follow-up visit. All of this work was done at no additional charge to us. The system's performance has significantly improved, and the troublesome “zero-output†panel is now the best performer in the array. So my advice to anyone shopping for a solar installer is to do your homework, understand the SRECs (if you are in DC—note that you may get low-ball quotes that assume you sign over the SRECs; SES does not do this), get three quotes, and make sure that one of those quotes is from Solar Energy Services.