{"id":93687,"date":"2021-03-17T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/\/?p=93687"},"modified":"2021-10-28T13:08:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T17:08:37","slug":"without-a-lifetime-of-maintenance-support-residential-solar-systems-can-be-orphaned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/\/2021\/03\/without-a-lifetime-of-maintenance-support-residential-solar-systems-can-be-orphaned\/","title":{"rendered":"Without a lifetime of maintenance support, residential solar systems can be orphaned"},"content":{"rendered":"
The U.S. solar industry reached the landmark milestone of 2 million solar installations in 2019, and it will surpass 3 million arrays in 2021, according to <\/span>Wood Mackenzie<\/span><\/a>. Millions of solar arrays are going to continue to be installed each year, and with that ramp-up comes the creation of new PV installation and manufacturing companies, and along with that, no doubt, the shuttering of others.<\/span><\/p>\n Palomar Solar<\/p><\/div>\n When a company goes out of business, it often leaves unanswered questions for labor and manufacturer warranty fulfillment. And with a number of new components coming out each year, product longevity can only be verified with in-lab testing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got 3 million systems, times 25 components on-site \u2014 you\u2019ve got 75 million components out there related to this stuff, growing at an exponential rate and all of it\u2019s supposed to run for 20 years and none of it\u2019s been tested in the field more than five years,\u201d said Derek Chase, CEO of SunSystem Technology<\/a>, a national O&M company servicing residential, commercial and utility market solar arrays.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Commercial and utility customers are often afforded access to legal teams capable of tracking and fulfilling warranty obligations, Chase said, but residential customers might not have the same support. So, solar maintenance, installation and insurance services are trying to fill in that gap left when companies go out of business and leave homeowners and their arrays in the dark.<\/span><\/p>\n Establishing a nationwide maintenance network<\/b><\/p>\n When SunSystem Technology started, it entered the solar maintenance field intending to focus on utility-scale arrays, but, due to the demand, was drawn into the commercial and eventually residential markets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t really understand how big the market was there, and a lot of groups didn\u2019t want to do it because you\u2019re talking $200, $300 a service call,\u201d Chase said. \u201cYou\u2019re dealing with homeowners. It\u2019s way easier to go to some field in the middle of nowhere and do your work than deal with a homeowner and all the risks that are associated with that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Since its start, the company has established 20 service centers across the United States in \u201chigh-density\u201d solar markets, where technicians can visit multiple homes a day. The majority of SunSystem\u2019s customers come from partnerships with larger installers, but the company still accepts calls from individual homeowners after their original installer goes out of business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n SunSystem can fulfill certain manufacturer warranties, but not labor-related warranties. Technicians are most often dealing with inverter issues on residential arrays. Having a microinverter on every module increases the chances of multiple failures, and locating which one failed is no easy task when monitoring programs are inaccessible. If it\u2019s in the center of an array, technicians will have to take apart the whole system, and if it\u2019s not under warranty, \u201cit\u2019s a lot of work that turns into a $3,000 service ticket,\u201d Chase said.<\/span><\/p>\n Although many installers promise a workmanship warranty at signing, if they go out of business, the system owner likely won\u2019t see that post-installation support. Unlike the automotive or HVAC industries, solar doesn\u2019t have an established nationwide network of maintenance service providers. Certain installers will offer maintenance for the life of the system, sometimes with a fee attached, but that isn\u2019t always the case.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf I go buy a car, I don\u2019t worry about whether Toyota\u2019s going to be able to take care of it. I know I could go to any service repair shop, I could get these parts anywhere, but that doesn\u2019t exist in the [solar] infrastructure we have today,\u201d Chase said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He suggests that part of the problem could come down to the sales process. Solar sales companies can be entirely separate entities from the subcontractor installing the system. And handing full ownership of the solar array to homeowners instead of a lease-to-own setup can mean they\u2019re fully responsible for the system off the bat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe group who sold it to you technically has this warranty liability, but they don\u2019t have any infrastructure because they just subcontracted the job to somebody for the lowest price and this guy who did it for the lowest price, he\u2019s not going to give you a 10-year warranty,\u201d Chase theorized. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to build something to where a homeowner is never truly abandoned. We\u2019re building out infrastructure on their home so they can feel confident that if an issue arises and their installer is out of business, that there\u2019s someone there to help them out and fix their system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Creating 30-year warranties and covering orphaned solar<\/b><\/p>\n Solar Insure<\/a> opened its doors after founder and president Ara Agopian saw a gap from manufacturer warranties in the solar and wind industries. The company offers a one-time purchase, zero deductible, 30-year warranty on labor, racking, panels, inverters, optimizers and roof penetrations on systems up to 200 kW.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere are things that happen that make it very difficult to stay in business,\u201d said Dean Chiaravallotti, VP of partnerships at Solar Insure. \u201cThis is one of the most complicated construction projects you can do for a home, not only because you deal with the city, but you deal with the utility and all the different parts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The warranty package needs to be purchased at the point of sale, so if the installer or manufacturer goes out of business, that labor and hardware is covered.\u00a0 But Solar Insure just debuted its \u201cSmart Energy Home Warranty\u201d program to help cover orphaned solar systems. The insurance package includes more smart home elements than solar, covering household appliances and electrical systems, for a monthly fee.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Like SunSystem, Solar Insure is trying to be an option for homeowners and solar contractors alike to support arrays for their operational lifetime. But the company is working to keep legacy systems operating, and honors the warranties of hardware like SolarWorld modules after the panel manufacturer filed for bankruptcy in 2017, and has a growing list of approved manufacturers it can warranty.<\/span><\/p>\n The warranty, which is offered as a separate line-item by the solar installer, is structured so that a company like SunSystem could be called for maintenance, paid to do the labor and reimbursed for replacement components through Solar Insure. The service uses the original installer if available, or one on Solar Insure\u2019s approved list of contractors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe get calls or emails every week from customers that have abandoned systems that don\u2019t have our product\u2026so they\u2019re stuck,\u201d Chiaravallotti said. \u201cThen there are companies that don\u2019t want to take the liability to go and work on a system they didn\u2019t install, so it\u2019s hard to find anybody that will be willing to work on their system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Handling installation and maintenance<\/b><\/p>\n