Solar panels are designed to save you money. And not just a little bit of money, but thousands of pounds over a 20-year period. You can benefit from a superb return on investment and protect your expenses for decades by generating your own renewable power.
However, if you use a cowboy solar company you’re jeopardising all of this. Although it may seem practical to install cheap solar panels to save yourself some money at the time, later down the line you’ll seriously regret the decision as the panels fault and fail to work correctly.
So what is a cowboy solar company and how should you spot them? Essentially, whenever there’s a trade and money to be made you’ll find companies pretending to be qualified and trying to make a living.
You’ve probably seen programmes on TV highlighting these ‘rogue’ companies as camera crews chase them down the street questioning them on shoddy work. On most occasions cowboys won’t hold any qualifications and the company won’t be registered to a regulatory body either.
In the solar industry you can tell if a company is reputable because there’ll have MCS certification. To benefit from the Government’s feed-in tariff payments you need to hire a company tied in with the MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme).
But despite the warnings, there are still homeowners choosing to ignore the problem. There are solar systems installed currently that will leave homeowners facing greater energy bills because the meters installed are incorrectly measuring the electricity supplied.
When you invest in something like solar, you want to be confident that everything is up to scratch and will be saving you money for decades. So why put yourself at the risk of a cowboy trader? Using reputable solar companies with years of experience in the industry and a catalogue of referrals is the best road to go down.
Incorrectly installed solar panels can have many faults and if you hire a cowboy company you’ll end up paying a lot more than you originally wanted. A spokesman for OVO Energy talked about one particular case, saying: “We believe that the initial problem was caused when the company installing the solar panels didn’t reconfigure the original electricity meter correctly.”
Although it may not be a significant number in proportion to the number of solar panels installed in the UK, OVO say they’ve had 30 complaints since 2010. This shows there is a problem in the country and many more complaints could filter in over the years as solar systems start faulting. Ensure you’re not one of these.