Solar Power Direct

1st experience with Solar Panels/Inverter an easy 5 stars. 2nd experience with Heat Pump an easy 5 stars. The lovely Martina, accessible, informative, even responded to me when still on holiday. All undone. Decided when the inverter failed just… Read more

under 5 years, to replace and go all out with Solar. Logical to buy a battery living near Pt Wakefield with at least fortnightly power failures or servicing outages. One time 3 in a week. Battery might be expensive but factoring in the rebate and they would assist going through the procedure and that put the deal over the line. From memory the price rose 4 times from original quote but sounded logical. Rerouting cable as an example. Communication remained clear and purposeful. The battery was delayed coming from China, what doesn't. Updates provided. SPD can only do its best. Fair enough. On day of installation a van from another company turned up, perhaps because of a country installation. Friendly and competent tradies. Fine. Then about 1.5 hours into the installation I was told the garage which hosts the solar panels needed to be disconnected. Then get told it would be permanent when there is no going back through a half installation. I have found out from my very ethical and competitively priced sparky that reconnecting will be a minimum of $800. Lost one star because I have never had an explanation of why it was necessary. It shouldn't be hard for a person with industry knowledge to answer. No response at all. The Van was still in sight when my bank acknowledged a Direct Debit of over $13,000 only to receive a message a quarter of an hour after the installers left that legal action would be taken due to lack of payment. Wow! There never was an acknowledgement of payment. I have never encountered that before. Anyone I have shown that to seems stunned. We were. An easy way to lose another star. I am assured they changed that after I politely said to them that it was not a very nice thing to be confronted with just before a weekend with a closed office.

So as a Disability Pensioner on a limited income for whom this was a large financial decision on partly borrowed money this was only the beginning of problems with SPD, with Origin Energy and subsidiary Loop and Electrify producing more problems. Subsequent to problems with Origin like taking 9 months after numerous emails, photos and calls in getting Solar infeed and NMI acknowledged in 2019, it is now revealed I have a Life Support notice on my file. Where did it come from? Show it to me. 6 months later, still no response and I do acknowledge Robbie at SPD contacted someone called Tom at Origin who revealed to Robbie it would take at least 2 months to remove because of "Red Tape". Never heard from this Tom and never expected it given Origins record. Of course Loop as a subsidiary can't process anything with a Life Support order because draining the battery could lead to a fatality. I don't get the rebate which I was relying on to repay part of my debt incurred by the battery. I don't get the rebate because I have never, not once got a response to any of my numerous messages to Origin. I am the furthest thing from vindictive but I hope one day Tom gets this sort of treatment as a wake up call.

If SPD like other installers assisted with the Rebate procedure and I was never even told where to start or indeed I had to do anything the first indication was an email 2 months after installation when they asked Have you claimed the rebate yet? Lost another star. After that I was forwarded an email link to Loop which brought up an error code. (The fault being Loops site). I have a lot of other issues foremost with Origin but handling things at an early stage is always beneficial and I could have been dealing with Origin, Loop and the Ombudsman a lot earlier and SPD caused that delay. I have never filled out a form, indeed Origin keep sending me forms but I have never filled one out or gone to a doctor to complete one, but any attempt to have a reference removed from their records has been ignored. Absolute unrelenting silence.

As matters evolved just in conversation at the checkout at Foodland in Balaklava it turned out we had all had batteries installed in the last 6 months ( don't know who their installers were ) but they were questioning the following too-

Their bill like mine was higher. During power failures or grid servicing outages there is no emergency battery power available. Robbie informs me in his latest response companies cannot bypass software to access power without paying for it so the only other logic is the battery is no good. At night virtually nothing is running other than the fridge. That is certainly not the performance level promised. I have received no satisfactory explanation. And this experience is shared by 4 people in a shop simultaneously. How many others? Why is the battery incapable of supplying power during outages? I would really welcome an explanation after costing more than $14,000 including the garage bill. There has been nil benefit having a battery, other than constant headaches. Look every company has a bad moment. I have sent probably about 30 emails to SPD. Answering questions to protect the companies reputation, I can identify. Been there and done that. To avoid answering the garage question, inexcusable. Over 30 calls , when possible in a zone with appalling phone coverage and over 200 emails mostly addressed to Origin has contributed to driving me to my wit's end and as a background doesn't improve my responses toward SPD. I think they all have a degree of culpability in this matter. I did my research, I stuck with a company I trusted ( a lot ) This project did not involve good communication, usually a hallmark of this company. I acknowledge the level of frustration made me use bad language and I had a very strict upbringing as a child. For that I apologise abjectly. It is the only time in my life which is telling as to how much this has affected me. After dozens of emails not one thing is properly answered including by SPD and definitely not by Origins silence. I can't even go to another retailer because the phantom Life Support order will follow, the one that doesn't exist. And Robbie, apart from the very last email, I have always been polite, and civilised. Unless you were in my shoes you can't have any comprehension of the pain felt this end. So I have a huge level of frustration with Origin, yet again, leaving them even achieves nothing, and on top of that I have an unwarned bill to reconnect power to the garage, a higher electricity bill and no power during outages. And no rational explanation. That would cost nothing to anyone but still not forthcoming, from anyone. So obviously extremely disappointed, dissatisfied and I can't bear to look at the blinking light on the flat battery. Numerous times a day I walk past a $14,000 white elephant.