Invertor warranty extension or just buy another?

[cjapeterborough]

I am lucky to have had nearly 5 years of trouble free generation with my 4KW and SMA 4000TL system.
This came with the standard 5 year invertor warranty and I have the option still to extend this for another 5 years for say £250 approx.

My dilemma is whether to extend or if I have a failure replace with another...shall we say newer invertor.

My son had a system installed last year using a Solis 3.6k-2g and I have been very impressed so far.
It came with a 10 year warranty and probably cost 30% of the SMA price.
The cost of say adding this to my sytem would probably be around £500 should I go this route.

So the dilemma extend or just replace?

If I was to replace the invertor with something other than SMA would it effect the original certification and FIT?

But then again the devil you know......!

As always I would welcome any suggestion/comments?

 

[whinmoor]

I’d suggest considering self-insuring rather than forking out for something that might not happen. Set aside a theoretical £50-£100 a year in anticipation of an inverter failure. I'd stick with an SMA if you have any shading whatsoever.

We’ve installed both SMA and Solis inverters. Both come with a 5-year standard warranty that can be extended for an additional premium. The installer should provide you with a certificate showing by the serial number of the inverter that the warranty extension has been registered with the manufacturer

One thing to be aware of is that the AC and DC connectors on some inverters are different. This means that the installer will need to change them if you swap inverter brands. If there's not enough slack on the cables, they might need replacing or extending as well.

The bracket also will not be compatible so, whilst a like-for-like replacement will only take perhaps 20 minutes, using a different brand will take a fair while longer.

Any inverter-specific monitoring devices (eg Sunnybeam) you have will also become redundant.

 

[cjapeterborough]

Thanks for the reply.

Looking at the SMA warranty extension they have two types termed active and comfort the difference allows a chargeback fee of £105 for installation. Is this amount normally enough to cover the cost of swapping the inverter? Would I simply find a local installer and have nothing more to pay?

All the inverter warranties seem to be based on the same model ie we ship and you find someone to install....thats not quite so easy if the Company the system was purchased from no longer exists. PS Anyone know what has happened with Solargen UK all contact links are down yet one of the directors has already registered another renewable energy Company.

I would seriously consider replacing the SMA-4000TL-20 if it failed with a Solis 3.6K-2g as they are both twin mppt and MP4 and the Solis is relatively low cost versus the SMA. Is it reasonable to assume that would be a simple swap...I would just buy a Ginlong dongle for monitoring instead of Sunny Explorer.

All comments welcome!

If the hardware changes do you have to notify anyone regarding the original registration?

 

[whinmoor]

I only have limited experience of SMA’s warranty programme as we haven’t yet had a failure on one we’ve installed ourselves. I’ve always found them to be a helpful and professional company.

You need to be 100% certain that it’s the inverter that’s cream crackered – not a fault elsewhere in the system. They may well test the alleged dud when you send it back. If you’re wrong and they find the inverter’s working fine, they may well bill you for the freight and handling costs.

Would £105 be enough to cover two site visits for an installer? (One to confirm your preliminary diagnosis that the inverter’s failed and another to actually carry out the replacement.) I can’t answer that but I suspect not, especially if you expect them to do all the paperwork.

In theory, if you replace an inverter with a different model, another G83 should be notified to the DNO. This is certainly true if you fit a larger one.

However, and I may be wrong with this, isn’t the SMA4000-20 capable of outputting 4000w? If so, this is above G83 and your installer should have applied for G59 permission to connect prior to beginning the installation. Presumably this wasn’t done, so, strictly speaking, you have a non-compliant PV system which the DNO could order you to disconnect.

Replacing the SMA4000-20 with a Solis 3.6k-2g would solve this problem as then you would be G83 compliant. If you prefer to stick with SMA, I’d probably go for the SB3600-21.

The replacement itself should be reasonably straightforward but a decent installer would give the whole system a “once-over” and other issues might be noticed.

 

[cjapeterborough]

The SMA-4000TL-20 was software limited to G83/1 at installation...although as I user a I could change it if I had the gridguard code. My installer took the responsibility to notify the DNO however as it is set at G83/1 my understanding was that all is OK