C & F Wind Turbines and UK TOG

[chaos]

One of my worst business decisons i ever made was to buying a turbine
from c&f green energy, although the turbine is ok at the moment their
customer service is truly shocking.i now hear their is a group of turbine owners
Called UK tog, that taken over the running servicing & repair of their machines.
Is anybody a member of the co-operative and how is it going.

 

[f0ster]

they are (UKTOG LLP along with Nextgen Renewables Ltd) cf shot them selves in the foot by giving such a fantastic warranty on their turbines which they have now reneged on. the original inverter manufacturer has gone bust and so cf have dodged out of their responsibilities, a replacement inverter for the 20kw is about £9K installed. cf make body pressings out of metal for the interiors of many makes of motor car, there is a cf forum.

 

[chaos]

Some times look at the cf forum but they seldom mention uk tog
so looking for a second opinion

 

[f0ster]

there are other cf independents who can get parts and also provide controllers that are not controlled remotely by CF. many are now using the abb inverters to replace the failed original ones. the original ones can be repaired and the repairer provides a 12 month warranty, the abb replacement inverter only has a 2 year warranty whereas the solar equivalent comes with a 10 year warranty? it is a 27.5kw machine.

 

[chaos]

My gen drive inverter is still going touch wood, thought the company who was
mending them had stopped or they were only giving them a 3 month warranty.
I have a ABB inverter on 30 kW of solar panels very quiet and doesn't seem to
get hot

 

[chaos]

Anyone else?

 

[shauntull]

We have 3 no C&F 11KW 3phase turbines. None working at the moment which isn't a big surprise. In the 5 years we've had them then I don't think we've ever had all 3 working at the same time. We had Gendrives but 2 of them failed so we were advised to go for the EL power 30KW clean invertor. To be fair these new invertors do look the part but unfortunately our bad luck continues. The first turbine ran for 2 days then the generator in turbine failed. They took the head away and we've not seen it since July and the other turbine ran sporadically. C&F claimed it kept losing coms then stopped. We would then have to manually start the turbine at tower and it would run for 30 min to 24hr and then process had to be repeated. Just before xmas then it wouldn't start manually so I took the control box into the shed, opened it and could smell a burning smell. Our last turbine using the Gendrive failed in Nov. I have 3 broken Gendrives which I am going to send away to the following company for repairs - http://www.greasley.co.uk/ Spoke to them on the phone and they said they have fixed 7 out of 7 this year. Hopefully I can get 1 or 2 out of 3 units repaired.

 

[f0ster]

there is also another company who repairs gendrive and also gives a 12 month warranty. look on cf forum. (Servotech-Ltd) I think?

 

[chaos]

Servotech don't want to fix them anymore, to unreliable to give a warranty unfortunately.

 

[CPSL Group Ltd]

The Elpower is definitely the inverter we recommend for C&F Turbines, they will provide higher efficiency, and can deal with the higher wind speeds. We supply & service our client's C&F turbines, and if the inverter's are ready for replacing, would normally recommend the Elpower.

This is because existing inverter arrangements can result in some lost production when the turbine is sitting close to maximum speed and gusts push the output above inverter settings. However, the Elpower inverter will reduce this, making your turbine even more efficient.

If you are able to provide an internet connection with a good signal which we utilise through a wireless module from the inverter system to your house.