Energy News

Solar panel sellers slammed by Which?

Monday, 26 April 2010

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Homeowners looking to ‘go green’ by installing solar-powered heating risk being ripped off, an undercover investigation has warned.

Consumer watchdog Which? said that over 70% of the solar panel installers had overstated the potential savings of having the expensive energy producing panels fitted.

Just one of the 14 companies, Southern Solar, was found to be “helpful and provide sensible advice”, though none of the installers identified all the technical challenges involved in installing solar panels before providing a quote - which can often run into many thousands of pounds.

Five of the companies provided a quote over the phone without even bothering to visit the property, said Which?

Two firms, Everest and Ideal Solar Energy, received particular criticism from the watchdog, which warned that they had potentially broken the law, “using dodgy sales tactics and hugely over-stating the potential benefits of installing a solar thermal system”.

Which? calculated that a solar panel system could cut about 10% from the average household’s annual gas bill, but one firm quoted savings of 50%, while another quoted a 43% in bills - claiming that the home owner would save a massive £35,000 over 20 years - a figure that Which? said was a “massive exaggeration”.

Peter Vicary-Smith, Chief Executive, Which?, said: “Most of the firms in our investigation behaved like true cowboys - they promised huge savings that bore no relation to reality, and some really piled pressure on the homeowner to sign up immediately or risk losing a one off ‘special offer’.

“The solar industry is too important to our long-term energy needs for things to drag on like this. It needs to clean up its act, and if it won’t, the OFT and the government will have to step in.”

Last year, the OFT received 1,000 complaints about the solar panel industry, added Which? - far too high for an industry with less than 100,000 installations in UK homes, it warned.