Southern Energy Management

Work has been scheduled for early in 2019, but they could not have been more helpful and professional in explaining our options, how our home would get the most out of the panels, and how much we are likely to save. They were explicit about costs and available rebates. We were instructed to apply for a rebate from our local energy supplier and they literally walked us through the time specific rebate procedure. We made some minor changes to their standard contract and they accepted those changes without question. I can only assume their work will be up to these standards when we do the actual installation.

We had a 17kW system put in back in February of this year. It has been amazing coming close to 100% renewable energy for our house. And the panels look awesome. The crew at Southern Energy (Thanks Kelley, Graham, Brinson, Davison and all the other folks we worked with!) did a great job installing and making it look like the panels belong there. I’m looking forward to the day when the roof is the solar panel, and it has the same or higher efficiency as what we just had installed. I can’t recommend Southern Energy Management enough!

This was my second highly positive experience with SEM. I used them on a previous house in 2011 and didn't even consider a competitive bid this time because I am such a fan. They did a great job, very professionally, at a reasonable price. Highly recommend these folks.

Very well. Absolutely no problems.

The installation of the system went well. Once the system was installed, it took two weeks before the system was actually turned on. I had to call them to ask why the system was still not operational. When I did, they told me that I needed to turn it on myself. About two years after the system was intalled, the monitoring system quit working after a severe thunderstorm in our area. It took 4 months, constant follow-up on my part, several appointments that were broken by their staff, and more aggravation than I have ever experienced with poor customer service before the monitoring system was finally restored and operational again.

Great, very professional 18000

Great, no problems.

Very well, everyone was professional, the work was done on time exactly as described and the yard was cleaned up!

The installation was very prompt and well coordinated.

I first got mirco inverters which did not go well. Southern Energy Management came out a couple of time, and then gave me new larger inverts.

Wonderfully well. Great people.

unknown

unknown

unknown

unknown

unknown

unknown

.

unknown

unknown

unknown

unknown

We started with a free consultation with Southern Energy Management over a year ago to evaluate our options for solar power.  The specialist, Graham, came to our home, analyzed our roof size, angle and view to the sky with a special camera and satellite photos.  After answering all of our questions he left and later sent us a full report via email and an offer to come back to our house to talk it over.  Graham returned to our home and after much discussion we decided that it didn't make financial sense due to our roof and electric usage--even Graham said he didn't think it made sense and he did not push us at all into a contract.  He left after giving us some tips for lowering our electricity usage..
One year later, after replacing all our light bulbs with LED's and changing a few behaviors we decided to call the company back again to reevaluate.  Graham returned our call and came back to our home almost exactly one year after our first visit.  This time we decided to move forward with the solar installation.  We feel strongly that solar power is one way for us to reduce our impact on the environment so we were excited to get started.
Our HOA took a bit longer than planned to give us approval, but once that was done SEM went to work on permitting, engineering and ordering of materials.  They also helped us sign up with our power company on their solar program.  Kelley was helpful in giving us regular updates on the status of the process.
At this point there was some kind of delay in the ordering process for our panels from SunPower that added two more weeks to the process.  It seems it was some complication with a new online ordering portal from the manufacturer, but the team at SEM kept us informed and apologized for the delay.
Installation: Our foreman, Gordon, was great and explained exactly what his team would be doing and minimized the impact on our lives for the week of installation.  Unfortunately there was rainy weather for several days during our scheduled installation, but they were able to finish most of the interior work while the rain persisted.  And even though they couldn't finish the installation during their planned schedule, they put us first on the list for the following week to finish up.
We had two issues with installation:
--One incident led to a broken solar panel, and the regional manager who was on-site said that this was the first broken panel they've had in two years.  They ordered a replacement right away but it took several weeks to get and have it installed (The panels we were using were not as common and not kept in-stock).
--The second issue was that early on in the process we had asked them that if they could fit more panels on the southern facing roof than the preliminary measurements indicated, we would want them as well.  Once installation came around, they found they they could indeed add an extra three panels to that roof.  However, it turns out that they would need to order the panels, draw up new plans, get new permits and it would be a while before it could be done.  We were told that in hind sight it would have been better in our case to do the final measurements on the roof very early in the process so they could have avoided the delay.  I'm sure they will improve this process in the future and they did apologize for the confusion a number of times.
Once the system was installed (minus the replacement panel and the three extras) we had an inspection from the City of Raleigh and I'm sure we caught him on a bad day since he cited us for two very minor issues.  SEM promptly corrected the two violations and a week later we had a second inspection that passed.
If you are considering installing solar panels be prepared for the waiting, because after the inspection we then had to wait 2+ weeks for the power company to come out and swap our meter for the solar, bidirectional meter before turning on the system.  This of course is not the fault of SEM and they did tell us at the beginning how long each step would take.  Once they swapped out the meter we turned on our inverters and we were producing solar power!  Of course it was just a trickle since it was cloudy and rainy, but still exciting.
The next week SEM sent out the orientation specialist, David, to explain the system and it's workings in fine detail.  He did a very good, thorough job explaining the ins and outs of the system.  He also helped us to understand how our new electricity schedule from the power company worked--it's a time-of-use plan rather than a flat-rate.
As of right now we are just waiting for our final three panels to be installed which has been scheduled for the end of the month.
Throughout the entire process the whole team at SEM was friendly and professional, and Graham was (and still has been) available to answer our questions.  Even with several issues that caused delay, we highly recommend Southern Energy Management as their team is wonderful and they all were enthusiastic and highly knowledgeable.  Thank you!

.

unknown