AVOID EXSOLAR AT ALL COSTS

We spent R350,000 at ExSolar four years ago for a solar system.and this was money down the drain. They sold us two incompatible inverters, a Victron Quattro and a Kaco Powador which are not on the City of Cape Town approved list and they set the batteries in such a way that they were overcharged and over discharged. every day Our system is thus ******* and not fit for purpose.

After the system had been installed, the after sales service was less than enthusiastic and David Cooke, the owner, batted away our legitimate concerns.

The cost of legalising our system and replacing the malfunctioning batteries is approximately R300,000.

ExSolar claims that our intruction was to be completely off-grid and this is correct. However, they advised against this as it was far too expensive. In line with their advice, the ExSolar designed Smart Energy Monitor that they installed was set to switch on Eskom according to an ExSolar preset daily schedule. We have Eskom bills and correspondence to prove this.

Because of the deadline to register compliant systems with the City of Cape Town by 28/02/2019 and ExSolar's refusal to rehabilitate our system, we have had to have the system 'legalised' at considerable expense.

We chose ExSolar for our installation because of their claims to supply and train other installers . Their claims to be experts are unfounded in our experience.

We now know that: 1. they had never installed a system as big as our 10 kVa system previously as told to us by their technical taems 2. the 24 battery cells that they had sold us as 1050Ah per cell were actually 900Ah per cell according to the manufacturer of the batteries 3. the batteries were set up incorrectly at 1050Ah and thus discharged at 100% instead of at the manufacturer's recommended level 4. the batteries should have lasted approximately 10-12 years according to the manufacturer but are now no longer holding their charge under load as ExSolar set them up incorrectly. 5. the inverters are not on the City of Cape Town approved list and our system is thus *******

We could not under any circumstances recommend ExSolar to even our worst enemy. We have had a very expensive and unpleasant learning curve. One star is far more than they deserve but there isn't a minus star option.