Ted J

Reviews by Ted J

1 Review

Sungevity (Residential)

Dealing with Sungevity has been an absolute nightmare. This has got to be the most incompetent company I have ever dealt with.

First the sales representative will say anything to get you to sign their one-sided contract. She told me that the system would be up and running within three months which is normal for the industry. It took over 7 months.

I was also told (and have this in an email) that:

“Hi Ted and Olivia,

Here's the updated quote:

This one would offset 100% of your current need, so you'll have a buffer to run more AC and heat as needed in the future. Also, you'll take control of your costs instead of those higher rates in the future.
Let me know what you think.

Shine on,
Darlene”

Not even close. I am using less energy than last year and had to keep my AC at 80 like last year. I have changed all but one of my old light bulbs to LED light bulbs; the one not changed to LED was changed to a CF bulb because the LED interfered with my garage door opener. I am not even leaving my fans on unless I am in the room. This year was cooler than last year so the AC did not have work too hard. I got rid of the small AC used in the bedroom at night; it was not needed this year. I am not working from home anymore so I went from using my computer for eight hours a day to less than one per day. I even changed all of my Christmas lights to LED. Even with all this I am still going over; even into tear 3 sometimes.

The worst part is by time you find out how inept this company is it is too late. If you decide that you don’t want to deal with their lies and excuses you must pay a hefty amount to get rid of them.

As I said earlier even though they said it would be running within three months it took seven.

The first delay was in the design of the system. Their reason according to the account manager was that they were over loaded with unexpected sales. That is an issue the management should have taken care of, not making me wait even longer than promised.

The second delay was in permitting. They said;

Ted,
“I understand your frustration but it is not something caused by Sungevity. You should be frustrated with the city of Palmdale for holding up your permit. My installer went in person to Palmdale's permitting office on Tuesday and they told him that the plan is still in plan check. I don't know what my associate told you, but I have been consistent with my messaging. It is in Palmdale's hands.

Please feel free to go to the city office and see what the hold up is. Let me know that outcome.

Regards,
Jeramiah”

I went to the Palmdale city permitting office and was told that Sungevity had not provided the proper documents for the solar panels. I called my account manager and informed him of this. The next day I receive an email from my account manager informing me that “He had found the issue”! He found it? I guess he found it after I told him! I should not have had to go to city hall and find out what Sungevity already should have known.

On the bright side the installers were polite, courteous and professional. They had the installation with the required inspections completed in three days.

The only issue with the installation was that the installers did not know that I had a vaulted ceiling in my living room. No this did cause issues with the installation, the installer had to reroute some of the wires for the panels over my living room. The sales person was told about my living room ceiling, the inspector who came out to see if I could have the system installed actually looked at the ceiling and pointed it out. So, what happened?

The last delay was because they could not get funding. What? You knew for seven months that the system was being installed and you did not get funding for it?

At this point I wanted to get rid of this incompetent company, but was told that I would have to pay for the uninstallation. Have you ever heard of this? A company that is not doing what was promised charging the client to make them go away! Even better is the fact that you do not find any of this out until it is too late to stop the company from making your life even more of a nightmare.

So now four months late the system is somewhat up and running and more fun waiting to be had.

As soon as I started the system I immediately had issues. I noticed that SCE was not showing that I was producing any solar power. I went to the inverter and saw the following message: “Error! Arc Fault E050”. I called tech support and was told that a ticket was being created for me. I asked if I could just press the “ESC” button to reset the system. They told me I was not to touch the ESC button. I emailed Sungevity and got the following response.

“Hello Ted and Olivia,

I hope all is well. I wanted to inform you that I created a case with Power-One (inverter manufacturer) regarding the Arc Fault issue. At this time, they are sending their own technicians into the field to repair the inverters. They will be contacting you directly to give you a heads-up on the timing of the service work. That will occur next week. As you may already know, pressing the ESC key on the inverter should allow the unit to generate again - at least temporarily. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused; especially so soon after receiving permission to operate. I know this is frustrating, so I've requested that Power-One prioritize this service work.

As a leasing customer you do have a Performance Guarantee with Sungevity. If the system does not produce what we guaranteed over the course of the lease year, you will be compensated for that difference. Don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns, and thanks for all your patience while we work with the manufacturer to resolve this issue.

Take care,
Justin”

I went out and did the “temporary” repair. As of this date I no one has come out and fully tested the inverter. I have gotten no explanation as to why this issue had arisen in the first place.

Next I noticed that I was not able to review the amount of power created by my system on line as promises. When I tried to view the power created on the website I got “A problem was encountered while accessing performance data. Please try again in a few minutes. If the problem persists, please contact us at 866 SUN-4-ALL (866.786.4255) extension 5575.” So again I contacted customer support. At that time I was told that it takes a little time for it to start propagating. I waited and a month later it was still not showing anything. So they said that the solar monitoring unit originally installed was defective and had to be replaced. Well the second unit also did not work. So they sent out another. As the third solar monitoring unit was being installed the technician told me that the units were not bad just the wiring was wrong and he had to make some adjustments to the unit. What, adjustments!!!!
Sungevity sent me the following email:

“Hi Ted & Olivia,

You will recall that the solar monitoring unit originally installed was defective and had to be replaced.

The replacement unit has also malfunctioned. It appears the manufacturer had a batch with a software problem and we've had to replace some of them. Unfortunately your system was affected by two of the units.
A new one has been shipped; I will get an update on scheduling the service visit.

That Locus Energy meter measures production in two (redundant) ways: the inverter reports data directly, and it has an internal chip that separately measures the same production. We are receiving the direct inverter data, but the power chip inside the meter appears to have failed.

That data stream is the one connected to our website. So I can confirm the system is producing properly but I cannot display it properly online.

Here is the inverter data reported by the first unit, showing system production from 4/29-6/3:”
(I’m not showing the graph but the amount they say I used was 974.75)

“Here is the inverter data reported thus far by the 2nd unit, showing system production from 6/4-7/15:”
(Again I’m not showing the graph but the amount they say I used was 1272.89)

“I know it is frustrating to be unable to view it properly. I'll check on the replacement.

Regards,
Chris”

Now for the numbers:

Cost out of pocket for electricity.
April – November 2014: $1091.52
April – November 2013: $926.61
With added 8% $1000.74
Net Loss: $90.78

I added 8% for what Sungevity said the rate increase was. Now you think a loss of only $90.78 is all that bad but you must consider that I have made changes to use less power since the solar was turned on conserving power. As showed before I was told that not only would I have enough power to increase my usage, but there would be power to spare so I should have been an overage in my favor. I was also told that SCE would be paying me for that overage.

Power Consumption:
Now this is where it gets very strange. Remember I stated earlier that I was doing everything I could to use less power. Remember that they said the system “This one would offset 100% of your current need, so you'll have a buffer to run more AC and heat as needed in the future.” These numbers were without using more AC or Electric Heater. This year has been considerable cooler than last. Last year I ran my AC through most of December, this year it has not run since mid-September.

Examples;
August 2013 I used 831 kWh in 2014 I used 1411 kWh
September 2013 I used 688 kWh in 2014 I used 1189kWh
October 2013 I used 871 kWh in 2014 I used 936 kWh
November 2013 I used 478 kWh in 2014 I used 860 kWh

Do you have any idea how hard it would be to almost double your Consumption especially when you are trying to conserve? There is something definitely wrong here. When I asked Sungevity what was happening the sent me an e-mail basically saying I was too dumb to figure something like this out. The fact that they had a form letter for this makes me wonder how many people are noticing this. I emailed them back telling them I did the calculations correctly, as of yet they have not responded (More than two weeks later). I guess I was supposed to go with no real answer and just stick my head in the sand.

I do not want to throw around any wild accusations here, and there are many that can be thrown around. One thing that comes to mind is the inverter. I had issues with it early on and no one ever came out and really tested it. The equipment used by Sungevity seems to be prone to malfunctioning.

In conclusion, check out everything before agreeing to sign that contract they lie to you, they try to misdirect you, and they will say anything to get you to sign the contract. Have all the solar company’s come out and give you a bid. Check out complaints about all the company’s on line. Do the math….

Type: Residential Electric

Reviewed: 01/04/2015

Substandard
Sloane Morgan
01/05/2015
1/4/2015 Hello Mr. Jackson - I'll step in here. Let's start by reviewing your power use and how much the solar system is producing, so we can figure out what's happening and get this going in the right direction. I'll call you tomorrow.
Regards,
Sloane Morgan
Customer Experience Officer
Sungevity
55 Franklin Street
Oakland, CA
smorgan@sungevity.com

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