Salt Spring Island
When we built our home on Salt Spring Island, we designed it with the ultimate goal of energy self-sufficiency in mind.
Lars Jensen of Integrated Power Systems stood out among all the photovoltaic installers I interviewed. Not only did he answer all my questions cheerfully and thoroughly, he told me what other questions I should be asking and answered those too. He took the time needed to make sure that I understood the important issues, without any pressure to buy. In fact, he told me frankly what equipment he would recommend buying now, and what he recommended deferring, even though this meant that we ordered a smaller installation from him to begin with. He installed our initial system on time and extremely efficiently.
When a grid-tie backup capable inverter that both met our requirements and his standards became available a year later, he alerted us immediately. He then pulled all kinds of strings to get us more solar panels, which had suddenly become very popular and in short supply. He shepherded us through the process of applying to BC Hydro for grid tie-in. After another very efficient round of installation, we now have 2.88 kW’s of panels on the roof and we are on-grid, selling our extra power back to BC Hydro.
Lars made sure that the inverter we purchased is windmill-ready, and he is now watching and waiting for a roof-mount vertical windmill acceptable to him to become available.
Although we certainly qualify as interested amateurs, neither my husband nor I are experts in this rapidly-evolving area of technology, so we needed someone who knows what he’s doing and is good at it.
We consider ourselves extremely fortunate that we found IPS!
— Jillian A.
