Jim’s Energy Reviews

Rated 1.00 from 2 reviews

About Jim’s Energy

Jim’s Group started as a part-time gardening business while Jim Penman completed his PhD in history. It went full time in 1982 and was franchised in 1989. Currently, there are nearly 4,000 Franchisees in four countries, and growing at the rate of around 200 per year.

There is no company owned businesses and all work is done by licensed operators and Franchisees. Franchisor rights are also privately held and all Divisions, except Mowing, are partnerships with individuals experienced in those industries.

Jim is the owner and full-time CEO of Jim’s Group. He is happily married with ten children, loves his work and has no plans to retire – ever!

MASSIVE FRANCHISE NETWORK
Jim’s now have more than 3800 franchises and over 49 divisions. For all the business success he has enjoyed over the years, Jim Penman remains remarkably unassuming. At the start of the interview, when Wealth Creator asks to confirm his correct business title, he has no idea. He has to pull out his business card, which says he is a director.

“It’s funny though when you own a business,” he said. “You don’t ever introduce yourself as a director, or CEO or founder or anything like that. I just say “I’m Jim” and that is usually enough.”…As written in Wealth Creator Magazine.

Address

48 Edinburgh Road Mooroolbark NSW 3138

Phone

131 546

ABN

83 156 310 682

In Business Since

2019

Accreditations verified by Solar Choice

  • CEC Approved Retailer
Any of the above information look incorrect? Contact sales@solarchoice.net.au

All Reviews

28th December 2022
Ryan
-
8kW system
1.00

Installer Comments

Initial quote stage was fantastic, the sales rep was very helpful and answered all my questions and helped agree on a quote for a 8.715kW system and 12.8kWh battery. After agreeing and signing the quote I had some roof works done which delayed the install a couple months, but once that was done, the company changed the solar panels to another brand due to wanting to make sure we still had good Tier 1 panels. I was super happy that they reached out and did that, showing that they wanted to take care of my install. Once the install started, that's when all the issues started... I was not informed until the day of the install that there was going to be 2 inverters in my install instead of the 1 that I had agreed to. No extra cost was added, but it was sprung on me last minute and not explained at all to me how this would function. As part of this new inverter being added, the position and layout of the solar panels were also changed, moving 5 of the 21 solar panels from the main group of north facing panels to somewhere else tied into that second inverter instead. Once the install had been done, I was only then told that the second inverter with a quarter of the solar panels in the system on it, would not charge the battery and only be used for exporting and powering the house. At no point during the entire process of quoting, changing specs, agreeing and then scheduling the install was this explained to me. If it had been, I would've stopped the process there and not continued, because that's not at all how it was explained to me to work during the process. I bought a battery to be charged by all the solar panels, not only by some of them. The installer also left all their rubbish on my property which took me months to get rid of and a paid trip to the dump. Not happy with that at all. At this point I feel like I've only received a system 75% of what I want and agreed to, yet paying full price for it. At this point, I figured that's where the issues would stop, but they did not. The process to get the solar export approval has been, and still is ongoing, 3 months after the system was inspected and turned on. The installer seems to be constantly lying to me, blaming Powercor for having the wrong electricity provider in their systems, but when I called Powercor, they confirmed it has the right provider in their systems for a long time now, and that they have never received any applications for export approval. This is entirely on Jims Energy to resolve, and I constantly am reminding them to follow it up for months now, and nothing ever comes back. It's been, and still is extremely frustrating to get things sorted with them. Then to top it all off, the solar installer that was contracted out by Jims Energy to do the install called me at 10pm one night trying to get money out of me, saying Jims had not paid them, so I had the contractor coming to me trying to get money out of me or get me to sort out why he wasn't paid, which is completely unacceptable and something that should never be coming back to me. To be fair, the solar installation has been working great and exceeding promised production, but for the hassles and lies I was sold on and system not delivered as promised, I wouldn't recommend to anyone.

Solar Panel -

4.00

Too early to tell, but looks good so far over winter

Solar Inverter - Sungrow

2.00

Also installed a second Growatt inverter which was unwanted, but overall seems fine, the controls on the inverter are a bit hard to control and not documented for power users, so requires going through many forums online to find how to do things

Battery - Sungrow

3.00

Seems to have issues switching between battery, grid and charging sometimes

25th September 2022
Michael
-
10kW system
1.00

Installer Comments

Solar panels fitted July still not connected to the grid after numerous phone calls to Jim’s franchise I went through nothing has been done still not connected trades who installed these panels left plastic wrap around the house and off cut wire also found roof fittings on the ground this is the worst company I have ever dealt with so much rubbish I will be seeing my lawyers this week to see what legal rights I have to get this rubbish off my roof

Solar Panel - Jinko

1.00

Don’t know not connected to the grid been told energy Australia have lost paperwork by Jim’s solar franchise just a joke so far

Solar Inverter - Growatt

1.00

No sure not connected to the grid