Solar panel quotes in Cyprus — what should be in writing

A solar quote you can act on states the installed price and the price per kWp behind it, names the panel and inverter models, says how the array is fixed to your specific roof, says who submits the grid connection application, and lists what is excluded. If what you have is a single page with a system size and a total, you cannot compare it against anything, and you have no basis for arguing when the price moves later.

Installed prices in Cyprus generally sit between €900 and €1,300 per kWp before any grant, which puts a common 5 kWp system between roughly €4,500 and €6,500. Two quotes at opposite ends of that band are usually not quoting the same job.

Why written scope matters

The gap between a cheap quote and an expensive one is almost never the panels. It is the items that were left out of one of them: scaffolding, the connection application fee, an inverter that can take a battery later, making good the roof membrane where the feet are fixed.

Cypriot roofs make this worse than it sounds. A flat concrete roof with an existing waterproofing layer is a different job from a tiled pitched roof, and both are different again from a ballasted frame on a roof that cannot be penetrated. On one of the 1970s to 1990s blocks that fill Strovolos, the roof is shared and the route from the array to your meter passes through common areas, which is a scope question long before it is a price question. In Kato Paphos, the air carries salt and the fixings need to be galvanised or marine-grade — a detail that appears in the price only if someone wrote it into the specification.

Written scope also decides who pays when reality differs from the survey. If the quote says "roof assumed sound", anything that is not sound lands on you. If it says nothing, you argue about it with scaffolding already up.

The eleven items a quote needs

1. 1. Total installed price and the price per kWp

   Ask for both. The per-kWp figure is the only number that lets you compare a 3 kWp quote against a 10 kWp quote, and it exposes the quote that looks competitive purely because the system is smaller than the one you asked for.

2. 2. Panel make, model, quantity and wattage

   Not "high-efficiency panels". A model number, how many, and the rated output of each. Multiply it out yourself and check it matches the system size on the front page.

3. 3. Inverter make, model and rating

   Say whether it is a string inverter, a string inverter with optimisers, or microinverters, because that decides how badly a shaded panel hurts you. If you might add storage later, the quote should state whether this inverter can take a battery or whether that means replacing it.

4. 4. Mounting system and fixings

   The rail system, the fixing method for your roof type, and the material of the fasteners. Coastal properties need corrosion-rated fixings specified by name, not implied.

5. 5. A roof layout, not a sentence

   A simple drawing showing where the panels sit, in which orientation, and where the installer has kept clear of chimneys, water tanks and the solar water heater that is already up there. Cypriot roofs are crowded.

6. 6. Cable route and inverter position

   Where the DC cables run, where the inverter is mounted, and how far it is from the distribution board. A long run is not a problem; a long run discovered after the deposit is.

7. 7. Isolation, earthing and surge protection

   The quote should state that DC and AC isolation, array earthing and surge protection are included, and where each device sits. These are the items most often quietly dropped from a keen price.

8. 8. The grid connection application

   Who prepares and submits it to the electricity authority, whether the fee is inside the price, and what happens to your money if the application is refused or delayed.

9. 9. Scaffolding, access and lifting

   Included or excluded, stated plainly. On hillside plots in Peyia, steep access roads limit crane and delivery vehicle size, and a delivery that cannot reach the plot becomes a manual handling cost somebody has to absorb.

10. 10. Roof condition and making good

    What was assumed about the roof, what is included by way of sealing and flashing at every penetration, and what is specifically excluded. On flat roofs, ask what happens to the existing waterproofing layer.

11. 11. Warranties, listed separately

    Product warranty on the panels, product warranty on the inverter, performance warranty on the panels, and workmanship warranty from the installer. These are four different things with four different durations and one of them — workmanship — is only worth what the company behind it is worth.

Payment stages

Payment should attach to events, not to dates. Dates arrive whether or not anything happened on your roof; events do not.

A sensible structure ties a deposit to the order being placed, a further stage to equipment being delivered to site, a stage to the array being mechanically complete, and the final stage to commissioning and energisation once the meter arrangement is in place. Holding the last portion until the system is actually generating and metered is the single most effective term in the whole document, because it keeps the installer's attention through the part of the job that depends on someone else's paperwork.

Grants complicate the sequence, because support is normally claimed against a completed and connected installation rather than paid up front. Assume you are funding the whole cost first and receiving support afterwards, and ask the installer to state in the quote whether their price is shown before or after support.

Variations and how they are priced

A variation is any work outside the written scope. The time to agree how they are priced is before any of them exist.

Ask for the rates that will be used: the day rate for additional labour, the markup on materials bought for a variation, and whether small items below an agreed threshold are absorbed rather than charged. Then ask for the four most likely ones to be priced now, as provisional sums, so nothing is invented under pressure:

• The roof needs work before the array goes on. Common on flat roofs where the existing membrane is at the end of its life. Fixing panels over a membrane that needs replacing means removing them again in a few years.
• A supply upgrade or a three-phase issue. More common than people expect where an existing supply is already loaded, and in dense tourist-area networks such as Germasogeia, where export applications frequently trigger a load assessment before connection is agreed.
• A longer cable run than surveyed. Usually because the inverter has to move for ventilation or access reasons.
• Access that turns out to be worse than assumed. Steep or narrow approaches, and buildings where the only route to the roof is through a stairwell.

Each of these should be a named line with a price or a formula, not a phrase about additional costs being advised in due course.

Red flags

• A price per panel rather than per installed kWp. It sounds transparent and tells you nothing about the system.
• No inverter model. The inverter is the component most likely to be substituted for a cheaper one between quotation and delivery.
• No mention of the connection application. A system that is not applied for and metered is a set of panels feeding nothing back.
• A grant treated as a discount. If a quote presents support as money already taken off, ask which scheme, what it pays, and who claims it. Amounts and eligibility change.
• Verbal answers to written questions. If an installer will explain something clearly on the phone but will not put the same sentence in the quote, that is the answer.
• Pressure tied to a deadline you cannot verify. Panel prices do move, but a price expiring this week is a sales technique, not a market condition.

Compare quotes on the same system size and the same inclusions before you compare them on price. Our price pages carry recorded ranges by district, the services section covers the other system types, and the area pages list installers already working near you — travel is priced into most Cypriot day rates.

Common questions

How many quotes should I get?

Three is the usual number, and it works only if all three price the same scope. Send each installer the same list of what you want included, otherwise you are comparing three different jobs and the cheapest one is simply the one that assumed the least.

Should the quote show the payback period?

It can, but treat any payback figure as an estimate that depends on your own consumption pattern. A typical residential system on net metering pays back in roughly six to nine years, and the biggest variable is how much of the generation you use during the day rather than export. Ask which assumption the installer used.

What generation figure is realistic?

For a 5 kWp system in Cyprus, roughly 7,500 to 8,500 kWh a year, depending on orientation and shading. A quote promising materially more than that is either modelling an unshaded south-facing roof at ideal pitch or being optimistic. Ask which.

Does the installer need to be registered?

Grid connection has to be carried out by an electrician licensed for the work, and the connection paperwork is submitted in their name. Ask for the registration before you sign, not after. The installer listings on this site show registration status, and anything unverified is marked as such.

Registered solar installers

8 companies covering this area.

• LE

  Limassol Electrician 24/7

  Potamos Germasogeias, Limassol

  Limassol Electrician 24/7 is an electrical contractor in Potamos Germasogeias, in the Limassol district. Recorded services include fault finding, consumer units, rewiring.

  • Fault finding
  • Consumer units
  • Rewiring
  • Certification

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• VS

  Vascon Solar Experts LTD

  Pera Chorio, Nicosia

  Vascon Solar Experts LTD is an energy supplier in Pera Chorio, in the Nicosia district.

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• KL

  Kyriakos Louka & Yioi LTD (Office)

  Nicosia

  Kyriakos Louka & Yioi LTD (Office) is an electrical contractor in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include fault finding, consumer units, rewiring.

  • Fault finding
  • Consumer units
  • Rewiring
  • Certification

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• B

  Bioenergy

  Polis, Paphos

  ✓1

  Bioenergy is a company in Polis, in the Paphos district.

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• ΦΚ

  ΦΑΝΟΣ ΚΑΡΑΝΤΩΝΗΣ

  Nicosia

  ✓1

  ΦΑΝΟΣ ΚΑΡΑΝΤΩΝΗΣ is listed on the Cyprus Energy Service register of certified solar PV installers under registration Γ01/2017, valid to 24/5/2029. The entry covers ΠΑΛΑΙΟΜΕΤΟΧΟ, the nicosia district. Details come from the public register and have not been verified with the business.

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• ΧΠ

  ΧΑΡΑΛΑΜΠΟΣ ΠΑΝΑΡΗΣ

  Nicosia

  ✓1

  ΧΑΡΑΛΑΜΠΟΣ ΠΑΝΑΡΗΣ is listed on the Cyprus Energy Service register of certified solar PV installers under registration Γ03/2017, valid to 5/8/2029. The entry covers ΑΓΙΟΣ ΔΟΜΕΤΙΟΣ, the nicosia district. Details come from the public register and have not been verified with the business.

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• ΝΤ

  ΝΕΟΦΥΤΟΣ ΤΣΙΓΑΡΙΔΗΣ

  Nicosia

  ✓1

  ΝΕΟΦΥΤΟΣ ΤΣΙΓΑΡΙΔΗΣ is listed on the Cyprus Energy Service register of certified solar PV installers under registration Γ05/2017, valid to 5/8/2029. The entry covers ΕΡΓΑΤΕΣ, the nicosia district. Details come from the public register and have not been verified with the business.

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• ΣΧ

  ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΔΟΥΛΟΥ

  Nicosia

  ✓1

  ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΔΟΥΛΟΥ is listed on the Cyprus Energy Service register of certified solar PV installers under registration Γ06/2017, valid to 1/12/2029. The entry covers ΛΥΘΡΟΔΟΝΤΑΣ, the nicosia district. Details come from the public register and have not been verified with the business.

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