The cut and thrust of healthy competition can help a business develop fitness but sometimes things get toxic.

Below are extracts from a particularly nasty hate mail which was sent to an existing customer of Solartwin, apparently originating from a leading member of UK’s solar thermal industry. Here’s a tasty selection of its pork pies…

False claim 1: Solartwin’s uncontrolled heat source as PV pump will continue to operate irrespective of the cylinder water temperature ( I.e 100 degrees + )

Our reply: Actually the pump is controlled and the system does not boil. The solar controller operates the pump on a differential controller. The system does not boil even when you are on holiday. We have of independent research to back up this fact. The rersearch is further validated by a detailed mathematical model.

False claim 2: Not being part of Solar Trade Association means you should not do any business with Solartwin.

Our reply: Solartwin are members of the larger Renewable Energy Association (REA) which the Solar Trade Association are also members of. The Solar Trade Association is an installer led group and it is not a prerequisite that all solar thermal manufacturers or installers are members, especially given the REA have a solar thermal task group. In any case, we have met all the written requirements for STA membership. We have applied to STA and have been rejected. It appears that the STA board simply do not want us in. Other bodies or schemes Solartwin are members of include: The Micropower Council, The Association for Environmentally Conscious Builders, One Planet Products listed.

False claim 3: The British Plumbing Education Council (BPEC) solar training manual says that direct systems such as Solartwin do not work properly.

Our reply: Please note the BPEC course was written by Solar Trade Association board members who do not seem to offer direct circulation systems and are direct competitors of Solartwin. About a decade ago two STA board members had trialled and failed to commercialise the Solartwin patent. A failure to do things properly does not give anyone the right to block a good technology.

The Hot Water Association (HWA) guidelines on thermal stores advise that direct circulation is acceptable in a thermal stores.

Direct circulation is more efficient than having a solar panel connected to an indirect coil at the base of the store as it stratifies properly the hot water at the top of the store where it will be drawn off from hotter water earlier in the day. This avoids inefficient heating via convection from a heat exchanger. Indirect solar will suffer doubly from energy losses across the solar coil and energy losses through a thermal store extraction coil.

For health and safety reasons, Solartwin do not recommend twin coil cylinders, even for conventional solar thermal. Most twin coil solar cylinders do not comply with the government’s own guidance document on Legionella (L8) as they pose an unnecessary risk of Legionella because the boiler can not heat down to the bottom of the cylinder due to being raised above a solar coil. To solve this risk conventional solar are now specifying Legionella shunt pumps to mix the hot water from the top of the cylinder with that at the bottom. Prevention is better than cure. Solartwin prevents Legionella by heating to the bottom once a day.

Barry Johnston of Solar Twin Ltd commented “After eight years fighting our corner in the market, and seeing dominant positions being abused time and time and again by competitors, we would like the government competition regulatiors to now allow us to compete on a level playing field: (1) by requiring our membership of STA to be completed properly and (2) for our technology to be properly included in the BPEC manual. It’s funny to read and rebut this blatantly toxic nonsense from competitirs, but I suspect one problem is this: that we probably don’t get to read and rebut it all.”