Today's the day. The technician is downstairs finishing the connections, you've been up a mental ladder for a week. In a little while your home starts generating its own energy, and you have two options: watch it happen, or take part.
Take part. Commissioning is the day the system stops being an installation and becomes your system, and it's your best opportunity to ask everything with the technician standing next to the board. The next visit is neither free nor immediate.
This is the list of what has to happen. Bring it with you, literally.
What has to work
The system generates, and you see it. "It's running" isn't enough. You need to see the inverter on with no errors and a generation figure on screen or in the app, consistent with the day: clear midday, a figure close to the system's capacity; overcast, lower. Having that difference explained to you is part of the handover.
Grid export works. If your house is consuming less than the system is generating at that moment, the surplus goes out to the grid and the bidirectional meter records it. Ask to see it: it's the confirmation that the full circle (generate, consume, export, credit) is operational.
The protections respond. The technician should show you the disconnection and reconnection: what happens when the relevant breaker is switched off, how the inverter shuts down, how it comes back. It isn't a show. It's so you know how to switch your system off if it's ever needed, and so you verify the protections are there and act.
If you have batteries: the backup backing up. The definitive test of a hybrid system is simulating an outage: the grid is interrupted and whatever you defined as essential has to keep running. It's a one-minute test and it's exactly what you bought. Don't leave day one without seeing it with your own eyes.
What they have to show you
The monitoring app, installed on YOUR phone. Not the technician's: yours, with your account, working. Have them show you the three things you'll always look at: how much it's generating now, how much it generated today, and the history. Ten minutes with the app are worth more than any manual.
The distribution board, explained in plain language. Which is the solar system's breaker, what each protection protects, what to do (and what not to touch) if something switches off. Ideally, the breakers are left labelled. "Just call me if anything comes up" doesn't replace this: at nine on a Sunday night, the label on the board is your best friend.
The equipment and its lights. What each LED on the inverter indicates: which is "all good", which is "attention". Knowing the two or three normal states saves you frights and phone calls.
An honest idea of what to expect. How much it should generate on a good summer day and a short winter one. Without that range, your first July will look like a fault. And it's just July.
Your day-one checklist
- I saw the system generating, with a figure consistent with the day
- I saw the export registered on the meter or the app
- I saw the system fully shut down and start up
- (With batteries) I saw the outage simulation with the essentials running
- The app is on my phone, with my account
- The board was explained and labelled
- I know which LED is "all good" and which is "call someone"
- I have the expected range for summer and winter
- The documentation is in my hands, or has a committed date
- I noted down: who to call if it fails, and what the installation warranty covers
And one final walk-around before they leave: a finished job also means a roof with no leftover materials, tidy conduit runs, everything closed up and secure.
A well-handed-over system starts its 25-year life with you knowing how to use it and with a signed document behind every promise. That's the standard we work to.