Ecobuild...What did you learn?

[jupestar]

to be honest no. seems this year has been about consolidation. inovation was thin on the ground. 25% of the exibition was PV. mostly module manufacturers. which shows you where the money is. SMA didn't bother exihibiting, but most stands had an SMA inverter. found one installer offering 4kwp at £4995 fully installed. dug in deep for a few module prices and was surprised how low they went. on the whole nothing special. nothing to make me think wow.. thats new.

 

[jupestar]

oh. and the limpit man, i couldn't decide if he was a saviour, or to run a mile.... think i'll stick with krannich on plain. and half a ton of lead on slate!!!

 

[babba]

I did'nt go the though of going to London was enough for me. I would rather go to Hell...

 

[finchy]

I must admit MR Ploughcroft made me laugh walking around in shorts and T shirt, then I spotted his tool pouch ... very impressive I recon I might wear mine at the next trade show !

Jokes aside I really dont know how there deal with the Plumb centre works with regards to MCS and REAL.

PS - REAL audit went well I will post a new thread on this next week, really constructive !

 

[babba]

Finchy tell me more about the plumb center set up...???..Glad to hear real audit went well...shower of blood suckers...

 

[Glen Powell]

Busy 2 days down there, managed to get in the onsite premier inn, got a family room at far cheeper price than all the other rooms, some poor people got ripped at £398 a night.

Speaking with module manufacturers some prices are going down some are going up, One chinese manufacturer offered me a very silly price without preasure so will avoid that company me thinks, I Fought hard with a few other manufacturers to get good prices just have to run simulations on the panels and get a few sample orders over.

Had a good chat with the UPSolar, Qcell and Canadian guys of which the first two mentioned have new products out really soon.

Spoke with LDK who are unhappy as there are a few fake LDK panels out their going at cheep as chips prices, I gave them some details of where I have seen them being whored out.

Got some good deals on a variety of panels and will start bringing containers of panels in soon.

Spoke to a few inverter companies along with power-one who I think will always be our flagship inverter, making deals with a few others, the one with the 20 year warranty does not stack up as they cannot produce any insurance backing (as far as I gleened from the conversation), another chinese inverter ticks all the boxes and I will be looking for a 10 year warranty as standard with a cost effective extension. I am also going to ask that some form of basic PC monitoring be included as standard.

Spoke to Both Santon and IMO over DC isolators, the only 2 we will sell as the are TRUE DC isolators not modified AC, May have some interesting pricing coming out for one of those brands.

New feature apparent this year was the amount of low ballest flat roof mounting, most expensive is Hilti (but it is a trusted brand), I will be taking stocks but do not know of which brand yet. Saw a prototype made out of recycled plastic for a low balest system which is flawed in design but has massive potential, we have agreed further conversations on that one.

I spent 2 days there and ran out of time.

Best part of the show was going to the exhibitor party then out and about, got in my hotel room at 3:30 this morning so a full english an 2 packs of mints had to be done or I would not of lasted today.

 

[Glen Powell]

Forgot to mention the Powerone micro inverter looks to stacks up far better than the others so you may actually get an efficient micro inverter this year. I wanted to speak to David over it but David told me David was with someone, lol too many davids, but I will catch up with him next week.

 

[tlsambo]

here here on the David at Power one thing. David Smith deserves a mention, maybe his own thread. What an extremely helpful chap! Thanks David!

Sell Gen, are you a distributor then? maybe you could get in touch as I don't think we've dealt with you before. email through www.cornwallsolarpanels.co.uk if you like.

 

[BruceB]

SMA didn't bother exihibiting, but most stands had an SMA inverter............

SMA did have a couple of people from the UK office there, but they were hard to fiind - part of the BPVA stand

 

[Glen Powell]

SellGen is quite a new distributor with backing from Allbrite UK Ltd (i.e the company was formed by Allbrite UK Ltd with their stock and financial backing), I will admit that SellGen is using Allbrite's buying power to achive good prices.

We are basically looking at high performance panels and inverters at lower prices, our basic aim is to provide panels that are high yielding and low cost along with being on the Lombard list. I will be honest also in saying that Due to the current rush through investment markets our stocks are depleating faster than we expected.

As a company we beleived the last rush would be pre march 3rd, however, another 2mw of systems has passed through our doors since. we will be replenishing our stocks as soon as possible.

We tend to offer kits but in a different way, we want to be technically involved, we will not design the system in its entirety, however we will discuss the different requirements from different manufacturers.

As a company SellGen's aim is to provide branded full 4kw systems at £x.xxa watt (based on 8/8 portrait, tile roof), and from some of the conversations I have had over eco build that may be sooner than you think.

 

[babba]

That was a long winded...:sleep1:... NO

 

[Glen Powell]

lol Baba I will keep this response short then ..

 

[SRE]

from some of the conversations I have had over eco build that may be sooner than you think.

Are you talking pre July Fit drops??

 

[Glen Powell]

Yes, I am looking 4 weeks away

 

[babba]

lol Baba I will keep this response short then ..

All fun and games...

 

[moggy1968]

I would avoid putting commercially sensitive information such as trade pricing on a public forum

 

[Glen Powell]

I agree and try to edit or ask mods to edit, keep on forgetting this not a private section

 

[finchy]

yes indeed Glen hence the question on the other thread !

 

[tlsambo]

has anyone had an explanation from SMA inverters for their lack of stand? Are they being arrogant? or are they relying on their distributors to do their selling? (risky considering most distributors offer several inverter manufacturers). They've come out with the 3.6TL (which I believe has two MPPT?) and is yet to appear on PV Sol, to compete with the Power One PVI3.6 inverter. Will they also be releasing a micro inverter to compete with Power One's new micro inverter?

 

[finchy]

I think the 'Germans' are p**sed off with the British governments lack of support for low carbon technology and no clear plan other than 4 year parliament vote winning plan. I was speaking to a senior SMA chap last October before the DECC kicked the a*se out the market, do I'm sure the sentiment is even worse now !

It's a poor show to be honest, they need to up their game. They have delayed the replacement to sunny beam too. Plus their chaps don't reply to my mails.