Off-grid solar repairs, diagnostics and upgrades

Watch for these:

• The batteries are flat by morning when they used to last the night.
• The generator runs more than it used to.
• The inverter shows a fault code, or trips and resets.
• Solar production has dropped on sunny days.
• Power drops out when a big appliance starts.

Inverter issues and panel issues can look the same from the house. A test tells you which one it is before you spend money on parts.

Yes. A lot of our repair work is on systems we didn’t install.

Tell us the solar brands you have and what the system is doing. We work across most inverter, battery and panel brands. If a part is no longer made, we’ll tell you what will work with the rest of your system.

Loose or corroded terminals cause more faults than broken parts do. After that, we often see:

• Inverter faults that start somewhere else, like a battery or a setting.
• Batteries that have lost capacity or drifted out of balance.
• One panel or string pulling the whole array down.
• Charge settings that were never right from the start.

Many of these are cheap to fix once you know where to look. That’s why we diagnose first and repair second.

Repair it if one part has failed and the rest of the system is sound. That’s usually the cheapest path.

Upgrade it if the system works but can’t keep up. We can add batteries or panels, or move you to a platform you can keep adding to.

Replace it when the gear is old, parts are hard to get, or it was sized wrong from the start.

We test first. Then you get a price for each option, and you choose.

Once a year is a good rule. Before winter is the best time.

A preventative maintenance check covers the panels and inverter, the batteries, the wiring and the settings. Clean the panels when dust, bird droppings or leaves build up.

If your system is online, we can look at its data before we visit. That can save a trip.

You can’t tell from the display. A balance problem and a dead cell look the same on the screen.

It takes a load test and cell voltage readings to tell them apart. The fix for each is very different in cost, so it’s worth testing before you buy new batteries.

Usually not. The exceptions are an earth fault, over-temperature, a burning smell, a swollen battery or heat at a terminal. Turn the system off for those and call us on 1300 489 152. They are urgent repairs.

For other codes, tell us the code and the brand. We’ll tell you where you stand.

All electrical work is done by licensed electricians and Clean Energy Council accredited installers from a small group we trust.

We’re based in Ballarat and work across regional Victoria, on home and business systems.