Most of the anxiety in an installation comes from not knowing which stage you are in or who is holding the next thing. This is the sequence, and what lands in your inbox at the end of each part of it.
1. Survey
We measure the supply, read the meter data, photograph the board and walk the cable routes. Roughly an hour for a house, longer for a commercial site.
You receive: a survey record with the photographs and the measurements taken.
2. Design and quotation
A single-line diagram, the position of every piece of equipment marked up, a schedule of which circuits stay live during an outage, and a fixed price against a named bill of materials.
No provisional sums. If something genuinely cannot be priced until a floor comes up, it is named as a risk with a number against it rather than buried in a contingency.
You receive: design pack and itemised quotation.
3. Network operator paperwork
This is the first place a project waits. Depending on inverter rating and phase count, the system is either notified to the network operator after commissioning or must be agreed with them beforehand. The second case has a lead time that belongs to them, not to us, and it is typically the longest single item in the programme.
We prepare and submit the application. You do not chase it, but you should know it exists — a start date quoted without reference to it is a start date somebody has guessed.
You receive: a copy of the submission, and the reference to quote if you ring them.
4. Supply
Hardware ordered against the approved bill of materials. Built-to-order assemblies — distribution boards, changeover panels, PV combiners — are manufactured to the approved schedule, then wired, labelled and tested before they leave the workshop.
This is the second place a project waits, and it is where an honest lead time matters more than an optimistic one. We would rather tell you eight weeks and mean it.
You receive: confirmed delivery dates, and a factory test record for anything we built.
5. Installation and commissioning
Containment and cabling first, then hardware, then configuration. The supply is off for part of it and we tell you which part in advance.
Commissioning is not switching it on. It is proving charge and discharge against the meter, proving the backup transfer by dropping the incomer, checking every protection setting, and writing down the state we leave the system in.
You receive: commissioning record with measured results and the settings applied.
6. Handover
A walk-through with whoever is going to use the system rather than whoever signed the order, the monitoring account set up in your name, and every document in one place.
You receive:
- As-built single-line diagram
- Labelled board schedule
- Commissioning record
- Datasheets and warranty terms for every part supplied
- Monitoring login
- Operation and maintenance manual, on commercial work
Afterwards
Monitoring means we can usually see what you are describing before we get in a van. Warranty terms are in the handover pack in writing rather than referenced from a web page, because web pages change and your paperwork should not.
If you want to see the shape of a project before you commit to one, the reference designs set out four typical systems in full, down to the model number.