Solar Titan USA is the WORST!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ธ.ค. 2022
- Solar Titan USA installed an 11 kW Solar Edge system for our home on the farm about four months ago. It's been "operational" for the last 3 months, but it is doing the complete opposite of its purpose!
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Just canceled my appointment with Solar Titan. Thank you so much for this informative video.
We wish we had just bought all the components and installed the system ourselves. It works as intended after getting the manufacturer involved, but it would have been much cheaper and worth it had we not gone through an installer.
Go with the real company that’s called Titan Solar Power not Solar Titan USA. They are a off brand company . If you in GA or FL let me know .
I wish I would have seen this video before I gotten taken by Titan Solar. They duped me and lied to me about the financing. I just filed a complaint with them with the Better Business Bureau and I plan on contacting the Attorney General’s Office as well.
Sorry to hear you guys are going through all that, what a horrible company. I hope they go bankrupt before they can scam again. Will be sharing this video everywhere solar titan is mentioned!
Thank you. We really appreciate that!
They were scammed by both the solar company and the power company. The solar company lied to them and undersized their array and battery bank. The power company is only buying their power for a fraction of what they sell it for. I can understand them buying the electricity for 3-5 cents less than what they charge in order to maintain the infrastructure but buying it for only a fraction of what they charge is just plain greedy.
You need a special transmitter receiver meter for solar systems in my country, and the powerline company have to check it after the solar install that is it right or wrong. If they do not accept the install, you are not allowed to use the system. I have a 18kWp SE system, and thankfully it works like a charm producing around 10 megawatts per year.
We contacted the manufacturer at the beginning of the year, and they got the system working for us. We posted a video about it a while ago.
Wow! That's insane. I had to rewind it back a few time to make sure I was hearing you right. The meter on panel does not turn backwards when exporting power to the grid, but forwards. WHOA! I would hit Solar Titan up for breach of contract because they technically are not meeting your production guarantee. Wow, do you think exchanging out the Solaredge inverter will fix it? Don't give up on solar. Solar Titan needs to stop doing this with their ineptitude. My guess is that they should have changed out the meter (which you said in previous video was the wrong one) and could it have possible damaged the Solaredge inverter? Those salesmen really don't care I just looked it up, Georgia doesn't even have net metering.
They already swapped out the inverter for a new one about a month ago. These guys have no idea what they’re doing.
@@RigginFarm wow that's some next level problem. then only other options are the backup interface, the meter, or the battery. So what happen when you run off the battery at night? Does the Solaredge energy bank feed into the grid also? Or do you use the battery as just emergency backup? Did they tell you how they could fix it?
@@RigginFarm why don't you have a second meter for power produced? This is a power company issue, not a titan USA issue. If I hooked random panels to my grid without getting second meter to track production, it go through the only meter and of course increase it. You power company doesn't know how many watt hours you use unless there's a second meter for production.
@@ushipb00 The battery powers the home until it drops to 75%. Then it’s for emergency backup. We were told they’d get back to us in 24-48 hours about 50 hours ago. Not sure if they’ll ever call back.
@@etherealrose2139 The meter has two faces: one for power imported and one for power exported. It keeps track separately, but unfortunately the self consumption gets added to the import number rather than being free energy from the sun.
I had the same problem i was charged for what i sending back i just dced my system and my power bill went back to normal hopefully this lawsuit goes in all of our favor
We hope so too! Solar Edge was able to get our system working correctly, but it’s so underpowered compared to our usage. We’re lucky if it covers 60% of our daily usage when we have full sun all day.
@RigginFarm mine has not worked for almost 8 months now not a single word on when it will be fixed
@@greenreviews3391 Sorry to hear that. We contacted Solar Edge directly to get ours fixed.
I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with your setup. There are a few things that I can point out which will not make you feel any better but may help your viewers:
1) $70,000 for an 11kW system is extremely expensive! Generally you can compare solar quotes by looking at $/W installed. Your system is $6.36/Watt which is double what most systems install for. If a simple solar setup costs more than $3.50/Watt it's time to re-evaluate the bid and see what else is out there.
2) NET Metering, which is what Titan eluded you would have is not available at most places, as you found out and knew ahead of time. ALWAYS know what your utility company's policy is today and also anticipate what it might be in the future. At $0.038/kWh buyback rate and $0.108/kWh production rate your ROI is probably 20+ years which is an awful long time for anything to be invested in.
3) The fac that your meter is measuring export as import is not Titan's nor Solar Edge's fault. That is your utility company's fault and they should be the ones fixing it. While your Solar company should have recognized that something was wrong you can't fault them for the erroneous metering by your utility company. To mitigate the issue, see if you can configure your inverter to self-consumption mode only for the time being until the issue gets sorted out with your meter. You won't get the export credit but at least won't be charged for all the excess solar either.
4) Looking at your screenshots, what you're saying is probably not true. The bill clearly shows 165 kWh of buyback for November with 2,523 kWh of usage and the later screengrab from the SolarEdge app shows 137 kWh of export and 2,100 kWh of import which is largely in line with the meter data, possibly covering different time periods but the ratios are very similar.
I think your problem is going to be with ROI. If you look at the SolarEdge data it shows you have produced 676 kWh, of which you self consumed 539 kWh (676-137). This is exactly the same as the difference between your total electricity usage of 2640 kWh and what the grid provided, which is 2100 kWh. These numbers are perfectly reasonable and perfectly in alignment with what I'd expect to see from an 11 kW system such as yours in GA at this time of the year.
Now if you do the math, you have saved 539 kWh * $0.108/kWh (import offset) + 137 kWh * $0.038/kWh (export credit) = $63.48 for the period shown on the SolarEdge page which I assume is a month. Now if you take your $70,000 invested less the $21,000 federal credit you will get your initial net investment of $49,000 will take 771 months, that is 64 years to recover if this is what your panels will produce, the cost of electricity will remain the same and your self-consumption percentage remains the same. This is definitely a losing proposition but there is nothing you can do about it at this time.
Even if you paid a more reasonable $3.20/kWh for the system (net investment of $25k after federal credits) and we'd estimate that an 11K system in GA will produce about 12,000 kWh of power in a year (more in the summer, less in the winter) and we assume about 75% of self-consumption (seems reasonable with your usage) you'd still be looking at an ROI of 23 years!
Tl;DR: the ROI is just not there for a Solar system in GA at the price of electricity today even if you pay fair price for the system let alone getting gouged.
Math is not his strong suit if he paid $70k for a system lmao
The $70k also included a battery. We got a quote from another company a few weeks prior, and they were going to charge $82k for a 10 kW system.
The meter doesn’t read export as import. It reads self consumption as import. The meter reads export correctly. That is certainly the solar company’s fault. They admitted that while on the phone with us and the electric company.
The reading on our bill for import actually is the sum of import and self consumption, so we are in fact being overcharged.
@@RigginFarm OK, that makes a bit more sense in terms of cost.
Having said that I just can't see how the meter could charge you for your self consumption, it merely measures what flows through it so anything that is happening on the load side of the meter, self consumption and solar generation, has absolutely no way of making it to the meter, it is simply not possible.
Still, looking at your SolarEdge data and comparing it to the bill you show the numbers seem to align. You consumed 2,100 kWh from the grid and produced 137 kWh of solar excess while self-consumed 529 kWh. This is what the SolarEdge says. Your utility says you used 2,523 kWh and exported 167 kWh. The SolarEdge page seems to capture 28 days worth of data (28 vertical bars) while your bill is for 27 days. I can't ascertain whether the bill and the SolarEdge data covers the same periods (I would assume they don't). While you're averaging over 90 kWh/day your days have a fairly large number of variance between 70 and 140 kWh/day so not looking at the same data set can result in the 2,100 and 2,523 kWh difference.
Until you have the real and complete apples to apples comparison of the data the utility company is presenting and what SolarEdge is presenting you can't really say categorically that your meter readings are wrong.
Another thing to consider is that the SolarEdge and the battery system has idle energy consumption which can be as much as 200W so you might be using as much as 130 kWh in energy just to keep the battery and inverter running.
I also wonder, if you have a battery, why would you have ANY export at all? Why aren't you self-consuming any and all solar generation? At 100+ kWh/day consumption and at 30 kWh/day production how are you not being able to self consume all your solar production?
@@greg_takacs So you’re saying the meter should be reading self consumption?
@@RigginFarm No, I'm saying it does not appear that your meter is reading self consumption from the data you showed in your video. Until I can see what SolarEdge reports for the period 11/9-12/6 you can't state that there is a misread here. I can also see that you have used 2,561 kWh between 10/05 and 11/09 from your lead in segment and that was before they brought the new bi-directional meter or they flipped your meter to be bi-directional. Again, this all seems very much what I'd expect to see here.
I'm also saying that the meter has no way of knowing self consumption as that happens on the load side. Ie. the solar generation gets consumed which in return will result in less current flowing into the house through the meter. There is no way of the meter to measure the self consumption.
Solar Titan USA from west coast and went to Ga because they screw over nice people . They are in the top 5 worst companies. Solar Titan USA is trying to be like the real solar company that’s called Titan Solar that’s based out of AZ and work throughout the US. Sad to hear you went with a off brand company that’s desperate for customers. I recommend finding a service call company for futures service calls.
They went bankrupt and shut the doors in December of 2022, screwing all their customers with incomplete or nonfunctional systems.
Solar titan closed their doors
The US District Court is handling all of their complaints
maybe its better to not deliver the excess energy back tot he grid. but utilize off-grid as much as possible
How do you suggest we do that? The only option would be constantly monitoring our consumption vs production and turn on an appliance unnecessarily when we notice we are producing excess.
Diy solar is the way to go.
Yes. The “expertise” and “ease” of a solar company was attractive, but it was all a ruse.
I wish to god I would have seen this video before I got into stuff with this company. Is there any legal action that I can take to be able to get some results from this company? I’ve tried calling them so many times and it’s almost like they either changed numbers or they’re just gone now.
We’ve contacted Solar Edge directly and may have them get our system working properly. We’ll certainly update everyone when/if that happens.
File a complaint with your state’s Attorney General to help get the ball rolling with legal action.
This company sucks!!!!! Dealing with a lot of the same crap, they do nothing they promise and there’s no way out 🤬. They hooked up none of the stuff we agreed to properly. And tonight was the first time we lost power and needed the backup power and it only lasted 45 minutes!!!!!! Not to mention the mess they left after install and how long it took to get them turned on cause they wouldn’t turn paperwork in to our power company. If I could go back I would just get a generator.
We’d love to turn back time and stay far away from this company.
We need to file a class action lawsuit against them and mosaic their thieving bank
They haven’t returned our calls in almost a month. We attempt to contact them multiple times a week without any response. We need to definitely sue if this crap continues.
@@RigginFarm I’ve got an attorney looking at it
@@marklapalme Keep us updated
Agreed, if you could keep us updated on that it would be awesome
Oh it will definitely continue. We have been getting the run around from this company since July 2021. We still do not have a properly working system. We have saved zero dollars on our electricity. No one will return our emails or voicemails anymore. But when we do reach a live person, it’s always someone else’s fault of course: “You’ll have to contact your battery company, Generac.” Or “Someone has been out of the office all week, but we will get back to you.” Or “We’re still waiting on that part to come in.” I saw that a news channel released a report on their “failing business” and offered for people to call in or email with their experience with Solar Titan. My husband sent them a brief report of our experience and some very telling security videos of their workers disrespecting our property and admitting to half doing their job. Obviously, we were advised to seek a lawyer about this. Which is easier said than done when Mosaic (Solar Titan’s preferred loan company) has been draining our account for an incomplete solar panel setup.
Looks like Solar Titan did close down and file BK. Not sure why you chose them in the first place though as they have a multi year history of terrible reviews. I just looked at the Yelp reviews but I'm sure other review sites and forums would support their failure history. For solar especially you need to see multi years of great reviews averaging 4.5 or better and if they have bad reviews did they address them? With Yelp you also want to read the "reviews not currently recommended" as they also tell the story. In my opinion, it is best to choose a solar company that has a history of roofing with specific contractors licenses. The solar industry is boom or bust and a company that can also do just roofing business is at an advantage along with general electrical work.
The bad reviews started popping up shortly after we signed the contract with them.
Ummm... hate to say it, but $70K sounds waaaaaay too much for a 11kW system.
It was $14k cheaper than the 10kW system another company quoted. The backup battery is quite expensive and is a significant percentage of the total cost. We wanted multiple batteries but could justify the cost.
ROI is why most people will stay on the grid. Wait until these EV batteries start to be replaced and cost and disposal fees.... Its coming folks
We were definitely lied to about how well our system would work, and our main concern was backup in the event of an outage. The well, refrigerators, and freezers were our main concern to keep our animals alive and our meat at the proper temperatures. They couldn’t backup the well, but luckily we have thousands of gallons of water storage in the event of an outage that lasts a few days.
@@RigginFarm maybe get the SCC involved since its a utility Im sure they are getting notices from others that have been scammed.