Monday, June 4, 2012

Real Goods makes good

I posted about all the issues I had prior to getting solar system installed.  I have talked with several customer service reps and managers at Real Goods, going over the problems, and all apologized and told me it would be corrected.  I few weeks ago, I received a call from Ben, who is an operations Manager at Real goods.  He once again apologized, and offered me a "virtual installation".  I had never heard of the that, but he explained that they would pretend my system got installed on the original date, and send me a check for the amount I would have saved on my PG&E bill for the delays.  It sounded great.  I am not sure how they calculated the amount, but when they came up with $600, I decided not to dig any deeper.  It took a few weeks, but on Saturday, the check arrived.  So, now my net cost for the system is no longer $0, it has gone down to -$600!

Friday, June 1, 2012

May totals are in

Well, the May totals are in, and it looks like there may be an issue. According to the Generated vs Expected chart, I was supposed to hit 930 KWh of solar generation in May.  However, the total generation was only 831 KWh.  I don't think the weather was a major factor, as there were only 2 days of sub-par generation.  On May 3rd, the system only generated around 11 KWh, and on May 26th, it was 16.5 KWh.  Otherwise, no day in the month yielded less than 22KWh or more than 31 KWh.  May 5th was when the system peaked at just over 30 KWh for the day.  The system is designed for 5.6 KWh max, and it looks like the most I am ever seeing is 4.5 KWh instantaneous power.  I called my contact at Real Goods, to ask about why it is generating less than expected, and it looks like they will need to send someone out to check the system out and see what is going on.  I'll see what they find.