10 kW Wind Turbine Running Again

After 4 months and 4 days of downtime due to 2 blown 6 kW Power One inverters, we're back up and running today.

Add to that the 2 months it was down in 2010, and that adds up to 25 per cent downtime in two years.

Paul Wende, Energy West, installs the two new Aurora 6 kW inverters

And the problem?

"A loose bolt on the heat dump," says Paul.

In the Roses and Thorns department,  a bouquet of Thorns to Power One in California for the horrendously slow response from their Customer Service department.  After more than 3 months of back and forth--with no decisions forthcoming on inverter failure and replacement--Paul contacted the Vice President of the company.  Obviously the VP had the authority to make the decision, whereas others did not.

New Inverters en route from California!

Four days from today, we're at 4 months turbine production downtime (plus two months last year), so it was good to hear Paul Wende report that two new inverters were on their way from Power One in California.

"It took an hour on the phone with Power One's vice president of Global Renewable Energy group to discuss the inverter issue and Power One's customer service," advises Paul.

The vice president made the correct decision. 
Customer service dragged their heels.
Sales/warranty dragged their heels.

So the morale of the story is "start at the top, not at customer service" admonishes Kia.

And I'll cease calling them Power None...promise!

It'll be good to be up 'n running...again.

Now if only British Columbia's net metering system wasn't such a sham!