Solar PV Sales Snake Oil

[Barney12]

I was chatting to someone yesterday who has an existing solar array and was interested in battery technology. Along came the sales person from the solar Pv company who wanted £6.5k for a 4kw lithium battery system.

 

The two lines from his sales pitch which made me gasp the most were:

 

1. It's a better investment than the stock market

2. You need to buy now. Battery prices are rising all the time as the lithium mines are being depleated and raw material costs are rocketing. 

 

 

I guess now FiT tariffs no longer make it a viable costs they are desperate for a new thing to sell!! 

[ProDave]

We had one round (wife let him make an appointment after a cold call)

 

What he was selling was a "device" that would increase the yield of my existing solar PV system with claims of up to double the yield. He wanted about £3K for this device. There was no technical sales pitch, just "this is what it will do"

 

After he had been swept out of the door I looked it up on their very long website name (part of the Everest group)  what they were actually selling was a "voltage optimiser" and all it would do is prevent your inverter tripping out on over voltage at full production.  Now I know for a fact mine never does that, so the sum total of what this device would do for me is zero.

 

How are these people allowed to miss sell stuff like this that will only benefit a tiny minority who have such over voltage issues (and there are usually better ways to solve that over voltage issue anyway)
 

[SteamyTea]

59 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

1. It's a better investment than the stock market

Which bit of the stock market, it has many parts

1 hour ago, Barney12 said:

2. You need to buy now. Battery prices are rising all the time as the lithium mines are being depleated and raw material costs are rocketing. 

So what he was saying is that the replacement batteries will cost more, changes the ROI somewhat.

8 minutes ago, ProDave said:

prevent your inverter tripping out on over voltage at full production

Is that legal, I thought they were meant to trip out for grid protection.  Depends on how/where it is doing it I suppose.

 

If only people had stayed awake during mathematics and physics lessons, we would not have this sort of selling.  But then Grove said "we have had enough of experts".

[Barney12]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Which bit of the stock market, it has many parts

So what he was saying is that the replacement batteries will cost more, changes the ROI somewhat.

Is that legal, I thought they were meant to trip out for grid protection.  Depends on how/where it is doing it I suppose.

 

If only people had stayed awake during mathematics and physics lessons, we would not have this sort of selling.  But then Grove said "we have had enough of experts".

 

He apparently was a Independent Financial Advisor before moving into solar sales, that fact was very much part of his pitch. Just about says it all really!

His companies batteries are guaranteed for 10 years by which time the system will have paid the cost back and more!

 

Honestly the script was like something from a fantasy book!

 

Whats scary is plenty of people will believe this tripe!

 

 

[Ferdinand]

Heh. Was his name Mr R Sole ?

 

Absolutely, the massive ramp up of lithium battery production is going to increase prices ! (Which are dropping at 5-10% a year iirc).

 

And the mines are running out .... that is why we currently have about 300-400 years of reserves (and 1000 years+ of resources) !

 

And aren't Lithium batteries virtualy 100% recycleable? (At high cost - so we mine the landfill in 50 years).

 

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-geopolitics-of-lithium-production 

 

Wonderful.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

If only people had stayed awake during mathematics and physics lessons, we would not have this sort of selling.  But then Grove said "we have had enough of experts".

 

I did stay awake during Maths lessons. They were torture. Sleep impossible.

I am glad he has had enough of people like me. Now I know the feeling is  mutual.