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A year and a half ago I leased an 8.64 kWh PV system from SolarCity. I was very pleased with the system up until a few weeks ago. On Wednesday, Oct 29th at midday, my system just stopped producing power. The Fronius inverter shutdown with a State 207 error and no amount of recycling breakers, switches or disconnects was going to get it going again so I called SolarCity. They said the soonest they could send someone out to check out the system was a week from then on Nov the 5th. So, at this point, I am going to be at least a week with no PV generation. On the 5th a technician arrived to diagnose the system. I was impressed with how knowledgeable he was. He opened up the inverter and there was a burnt plastic smell and a big black burned mark where the AC mains connect to the inverter. Apparently, the terminal hadn't been sufficiently tightened down (or possibly not tightened down at all), so the connection went high resistance and burned up the main PCB on the inverter. Additionally, the technician noticed that the backplate for the inverter had been mounted upside down, making the dust filters for the inverter impossible to remove. But he got on the phone with Fronius and I heard the Fronius representative say that they were sending a new replacement inverter right out, problem listed as installation error, to the local SolarCity office. That was 10 days ago (So I am now down for 17 days) and SolarCity claims to still not have the inverter. I asked them to contact Fronius and get a tracking number for the inverter so we could see where it is. They said they couldn't do that. When I asked "why not?" They didn't have any answer, just that they couldn't do that. But they said, "The inverter will be in any day now." OK, if the inverter will be in any day now, let's set up date for the swap out. "Nope, can't do that until we have the inverter in." Grrrr... OK, how long after the inverter comes in will it take to get someone out here to do the swap? Oh, about a week or so." So I ask, "Since the only inverter you are installing in Arizona now is Fronius, how come you don't keep a couple of spares on hand." No answer... Anyway, at this point I am going to be down for at least a month. A month I still had to pay the lease on but will have received no benefit at all from the system. The system is less than two years old, The problem was caused by an installation error on the part of SolarCity's crew, and they seem to be in no hurry to make it right.
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I'm sorry your experience hasn't been good, but thank you for sharing it. Silver lining... at least this didn't happen during peak production 4-5 months ago.CS6P-260P/SE3000 - http://tiny.cc/ed5ozx -
While not being a big fan of leases and not defending the crappy cust. serv. for one hot second, equipment foulups can and do happen. Perhaps another bright spot in all this, if one is to be found, might be that Solarcity is a big outfit. I'd start walking up the chain of command, include a copy of your post, and get everyone's name along the way until I found someone who appreciates the fact that a bad experience by a customer can be very costly to the vendor - much more than to the user.Comment
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I had 2 SMA inverter replacement. First time the boss is involved, it was done in 5 days. 2nd time without any complain, it took 21 days. The arrow was pointed at SMA because they did not send out the inverter, but I know they (installer) have forgot to order my replacement..... oh well. Sometime it isn't the company, it is who handle the case.Comment
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+1 on who handles the case. That's part of reasoning to get everyone's name along the way. When someone on the other end knows you have their name, their response is often better or at least more timely, partly because their ability to hide behind anonymity is lost. Start a file and keep notes.Comment
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Do you happen to have a performance guarantee with your lease? Is so, and you run a large deficit of production due the down time, then there could be some compensation to make up for it.Comment
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Hi PVPower, I do have a performance guaranty in my lease but it is kind of a rigged deal. The annual guaranty is about 15% less than the system actually produces. And any year that the system overproduces the guarantied amount, that excess gets rolled over to the production for subsequent years for the guaranty purpose. So after about six years, the system could be down for an entire year and still meet the guaranty. If in the really unusual event they had to pay out on the guaranty, they only pay about 4 cents a kWh.Comment
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Yup, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You might also post about your negative experience on something like Yelp. I did that regarding a poorly handled garage door repair and within a day had a phone call from the extremely apologetic company owner wanting a chance to make things right.Comment
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I managed to pick up a hardly used spare inverter at a bargain price. It's all ready to goOriginally posted by k1rod
into service if another one fails. Of course, I own everything. Bruce RoeComment
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SolarCity's lease must be a bit different then their PPA. When I was researching the PPA, they would cover all downtime costs (electricity used & equipment). Sorry to hear about your troubles with them!Comment
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FWIW, I've got a SolarCity lease on my desk as I write this, and, having just reviewed it, I can find no mention of any reimbursement related to equipment failure, either as consequential damages, or under a Force Majeure event as defined in the lease. There may be some recourse to pursue a claim under the performance warranty, but since those things usually have a very low bar, there are probably a lot of kWh in the kitty to burn through before any reimbursement will be possible.Comment
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