Review for SunPower

08/06/2020
Educated citizen Sebastopol, CA

SunPower Residential ---Arrogance and dishonesty

In April 2019 we replaced our 16-year-old solar array that was shaded by neighbor’s trees with more efficient SunPower 370W panels. I read the advertising claims about the communications app and thought it would be useful for adjusting the time of use with our electric car and all-electric home. The new communication unit is PVS-6 replacing, according to the installer, Northern Pacific Power Systems, the former poor PVS-5 unit. After a few months it was apparent that even the installer couldn’t get useful data from the SunPower-modified Enphase inverters. I communicated with Ryan Pickering: SunPower is rebuilding our monitoring platform, which we originally built in 2001. It has been a challenging update and I look forward to completing the project soon. SunPower is indeed releasing our residential battering in mid-2020. Monitoring is a critical piece of storage and therefore we are all working hard to solve this matter. Northern Pacific is visiting our engineering office this week and will be discussing some monitoring cases. Tony, as always, thank you for your patience. Ryan Pickering Residential Manager: Northern California Coast In September 2019 we installed Tesla Powerwalls and with their communication system I could monitor the performance of our panels. On April 14, 2020 our power output suddenly dropped by 20%. And has never recovered. The power curve went from a bell-shaped curve with maximum output of about 6.5kW to a chopped top form with a maximum ever of 5.3kW. Four months have lapsed trying to get SunPower to address this loss of power. A Customer Ticket Case No. 0213358 was opened with Jeremy Sibug as Manager. Three months elapsed with him not replying, even to the SunPower customer service reps when I’d call to learn the status. On July 14, 2020 he replied: Our Design Team and Engineering Team could not find any problem in the system. Both teams already checked for any possible errors or issues. One recommendation was to trim down the trees nearby, if not yet done. I’m sorry that our teams could not find any problem on your system. Let me know if you still have questions. Thanks! Contrary to this useless guess, the SunPower system was installed away from all shading. They seem to have not talked to the installer. Today, August 6. 2020, Northern Pacific Power Systems is removing the SunPower-modified Enphase inverters and PVS-6 and installing un-corrupted Enphase inverters with Enphase communication. Through these four months SunPower has demonstrated arrogance and dishonesty as a company culture. The photovoltaics in their panels may be exemplary but their damaging the Enphase inverters for their private communication system is a disaster. Northern Pacific Power Systems in the end seem to have fixed my system but why a reputable installer would market SunPower to a homeowner is a mystery. I imagine most homeowners assume their system is delivering the advertised power and, unless they have the Tesla softwa