Review for Sunrun Inc.

08/16/2016
Anonymous 01039, MA

A Very Happy Vivint Solar Customer

As you may have noticed, reviewers seem to either love or hate their experience with Vivint Solar. Put me in the “love” category. Before signing on with Vivint, I read these reviews and was concerned, but I soon concluded that the vast majority of the people who were complaining were people with unrealistic expectations or who really did not understand the process. I did my homework, and I am very, very happy.<br /><br />Our panels went up last November, and our system went online in March, which is the usually time frame. When we signed our contract, our regional sales manager accompanied the salesman, and I was sure to take his business card. Yes, there is going to be some inevitable miscommunication during the installation process; however, whenever I felt the need to communicate with the company, I included the regional sales manager in the conversation (always documented via e-mail), and he followed up and saw that things got done to my satisfaction.<br /><br />Yes, Vivint Solar would probably be well-advised to hire more people to work in customer service, but I never had a situation where I could not get through to customer support people or the Vivint fleet performance department. I monitor my system on a daily basis, so I was immediately aware of a software issue that affected the performance of my inverter and its ability to communicate with my gateway. Vivint sent electricians out twice to resolve the issue. Even when I complained about what I felt was a rudimentary software interface, I was put in touch with the people at SolarEdge, who upgraded me to the same professional software that Vivint technicians access. That, in itself, told me that Vivint was responding to my demands.<br /><br />The performance of our system has fully met my expectations. It was a thrill to see our net metering first run in reverse back in June. Since then, our electric bills have been a fraction of what they had been in previous years (even a credit in June!) We used to get monthly summaries from our utility company, showing us to be one of the most energy inefficient homes in our neighborhood; now they show us as just the opposite – one of the most efficient homes in our neighborhood.<br /><br />Of course we are paying Vivint Solar a monthly fee for the power that we are generating and feeding into the grid. That is our understanding, and that is their business model. They get the incentives and tax credits, they earn the money for the power that is fed into the grid, and we pay them for the power that is generated on our roofs – at about half of what we would have been paying (and what we paid in the past) to National Grid. People who complain about the monthly fee and the 20 year purchase plan agreement seem to be losing sight of the fact that Vivint Solar has installed tens of thousands of dollars of equipment at zero cost to the homeowner. This is equipment that we could not have afforded to install on our own.<br /><br />I have waited several months after our system went online before writing my review because I wanted to be sure that I was satisfied with our system and our dealings with Vivint Solar. At this time, I can confidently say that I am without a doubt 100% satisfied with our experience. I would not hesitate to enter into our agreement again, and I wholeheartedly recommend Vivint Solar to others.