Review for Blue Raven Solar

Office location: 754 Caldera Knoll, Lafayette WA, 98402

02/19/2024
Scott Kirkland, WA

No problem recommending Blue Raven but need to fix a few things

Summary: A generally good experience with some very minor faults. Waiting was the worst part. 4.5 months from contract signing to power on with a little over half of that waiting for Puget Sound Energy (PSE) though not their fault they needed to come twice. Content so far 8 days into power on. Like the Enphase app though emailed reports don’t seem to be working. Found out you can login on their website and download some reports. Detailed experience below. The sales experience was pleasant. The BR sales rep was nice and on time. What we particularly liked was there no pressure to sign anything. At the end he was ready to just leave and wait to hear from us. That was a big difference from the Lumio rep who wanted us to immediately sign a contract and when we said no, we needed to get another quote, he acted surprised, gave us the puppy dog eyes, and said, “did I do something wrong”? Annoying and big turn off. Other than that, the Lumio rep was fine, though oddly we never heard from him again. The BR rep presented about solar power, federal tax credits, net metering, etc. Then he created a preliminary design, yearly power production estimate, and cost on his laptop based on a NASA satellite image program that is supposed to account for seasons and tree shadows including a 10 years of growth factor (without asking what kind of trees). One thing the BR rep did get a bit wrong was about using solar power when the grid is down with or without our generator attached (we weren’t looking to add a battery). He said we could do it but couldn’t explain how technically correctly. After many years of hearing that you can’t do that, I was skeptical. Turns out he was wrong for the proposed design for us but was correct about it now being possible with the right combination of panels and inverter (Enphase IQ8). We could have switched to another panel type to get that capability, but production would have been a little lower. We didn’t want to compromise year-round production for the occasional power outage which would likely be in the dark of winter anyway. It is possible Enphase may come out someday with a compatible IQ8X and we could switch to it. The sales rep was helpful sorting this out through their engineering dept. I blame his partial error on the company as they should have provided him some slides in his presentation to address this very common question and make it clear you have this choice. Further credit to the sales rep for checking in along the way after we signed on. After we agreed to proceed, things started quickly. A week for questions and a site survey for measurements, roof inspection, etc. Then 2 days later the final design arrived with some small changes. We approved it. Another 2 days and we received and signed electronically an application from PSE. Installation was scheduled for 3 weeks after that. “Approval to construct” email from PSE received the day before installation. The 15-panel installation went from 8:30 am to around 3:00. The crew was friendly and without issue. We had been told the conduit would be installed inside out of sight however we agreed with the installation crew that with very little attic due to cathedral ceilings upstairs we didn’t want to rip out drywall even though they would repair it. I’ll paint the conduit later to match the roof and siding. Not that noticeable anyway. 2 more days later and the city approved the final inspection. BR then turned the system on and sent an email invitation to sign up with Enphase and set-up their app. I could see in the app that the gateway was connected to our Wi-Fi and was working. For some reason however all day all the inverters though showed offline with an error message, and no power was being produced. I called BR after a few hours, and they explained the system isn’t fully on yet. Need to wait for PSE to give final approval. The phone rep wasn’t sure how the system was finally switched on to create power (electronic signal or a switch somewhere I didn’t see?). This was a bit confusing since I thought I heard that moving the system lever to “on” was only thing needed to power it up. The next two days all the inverters showed normal status in the app but then the error message returned. I called BR and they said it was normal until we are fully hooked up. I then found in the next steps PSE has sent in their approval to construct email that we would have to wait for approval from them after the final inspection to begin generating and that it could take up to 30 business days. Found out from our rep that PSE will turn on our meter for net-metering and activate the system. PSE also said to leave the system off, so I did. Two weeks after the final inspection I received an email from PSE saying they have “received your Certificate of Completion showing us your system has passed the City/State electrical inspection.” Maybe it took 2 weeks to get the paperwork into their system and the 30 days actually started then? A couple of weeks later I heard from Blue Raven and PSE gave them an ECD that was 31 business days from the final inspection. Apparently, they started the clock the business day after the final inspection? One day after that ECD PSE shows up a little after 8:00 am and says there is a problem with our system. The PSE rep demonstrates the issue, and it appears to be a bad fuse (voltage across the fuse but no continuity). And of course, he would have to come back after it was fixed. I called BR immediately and they said they would mark it as urgent to get someone there ASAP to fix it. Probably the next day but would confirm later. Blue Raven took about 3 weeks after 3 calls to come fix the fuse. Not very urgent though I gave them some slack as Christmas was in the middle of that. At the 2nd call apparently the one person who could use their scheduling tool was out and they needed to train someone else. Bad planning. The guy who finally fixed it was very helpful in answering any questions and said they’d notify PSE right away. 4 weeks and 4 days later PSE shows up on a Saturday and took about 10 minutes to do their thing. At least they were willing to pay overtime to catch up. Nice guys and apologetic about the delay. Finally, we are making power!