One clean energy industry may have dirty secret
Installing solar panels is enticing. You can cut high energy bills, go green and get some pretty hefty rebates in the process. But several homeowners say there's a dirty secret about this clean energy industry: It can be difficult, if not impossible, to get technical problems resolved.
The homeowners interviewed for this story all have different solar companies and faced different issues, but all were left in the dark for months or even years about problems plaguing their systems. They believe it's worth shining a light on.
"I've been totally ghosted," said Massachusetts homeowner Tom Lucas. "All I want is a working system. To me, even though I'm generating some electricity, it's not right."
He first installed solar panels on his roof in 2018 and said he initially produced more electricity than he used. But four of his panels — 20% of his system — stopped producing power in 2022, and that's now costing him hundreds of dollars a year in lost electricity production.
Lucas owns his system outright, but it came with a 25-year “parts and labor” warranty from his installer, locally-based Invaleon Solar Technologies. Despite that, he says they haven't been able to fix the problem. Instead, he believes their energy is focused elsewhere.
"They're a sales-oriented company. All solar companies are," Lucas said. "They want to sell the next job. They want to get that installed and move on to the next sale. They're not service-oriented."
Steve Pilotte was an early adopter of solar, adding panels to his home back in 2009 through a power purchase lease agreement. Since then, he says multiple companies got bought out and transferred his lease, which left him now at Sunrun, one of the nation's largest providers.
Back in 2020, he started getting error messages on his inverter — which converts DC power generated by the panels into AC power his house can use. The messages indicate some power stages aren't working.
"Sunrun just doesn't want any part of (fixing) it," he said. "They'll send me the bill but no support."
Initially, Pilotte says Sunrun sent out a technician, but he couldn't fix it. The tech promised someone would follow up, but no one ever did. Pilotte says that the same scenario has been repeated year after year after year.
"Once again, in 2022, I followed up with them. And then 2023. And January 2024," he said. "I'm totally lost. I've never experienced a situation like this in my life."
Pilotte believes if the problem is not fixable, Sunrun should let him out of the final few years of his lease, since he held up his end of the bargain.
"I guess if they can't fix it, and they don't want to resolve it then yeah, just go away," he said. "You know, take it all off."
Mike Rice also leases his solar panels at his home and pays $121 per month to a company called Spruce Power. At first, the addition of the panels had led to big subtractions in his National Grid bills.
"In the summer and part of the fall, my electric bill is around zero," he said.
But that wasn't the case in 2023. Despite promises by Spruce to monitor his system, his net meter stopped working. That means he stopped getting credit for the energy his panels were producing. Instead, he got huge electric bills.
"No one called me to tell me my system is out," Rice said.
He was finally able to get a technician out to replace the meter several months later but says Spruce denied him any type of compensation for missing the peak energy production months.
"Not even credits," he said. "I'd just take credits so I can offset my future bills, but they won't do that."
These men say they don't want to discourage other homeowners from the adoption of solar but say it's imperative to look at a company's service record when choosing a provider.
"I think they're more interested in putting solar up than repairing it," Rice said.
