By Ben Simmoneau
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FRAMINGHAM, Massachusetts (WCVB) — Leasing solar panels is an easy way to avoid the upfront cost of owning your own system. But it comes with other potential problems, including one most people might not think about: What happens when the company that owns the panels goes bankrupt?
That’s exactly what has happened for customers of Sunnova, and numerous homeowners across Massachusetts say the replacement management company — SunStrong — is leaving them in the dark, letting their systems go unrepaired for months on end. At the same time, they’re still being charged hefty lease payments.
Emilio Spagnuolo is sick and tired of simply trying to get what he’s paying for: power produced from the solar panels on the roof of his Framingham home.
“I feel like I have been taken and that they have not followed through with anything they told me that they would ever do,” he said. “Four times they told me they were coming out. They canceled without notifying me.”
In 2023, he leased his solar panel system from Sunnova, entering a 25-year agreement for $329 per month. He says most months of the year, his electric bill is $0. But that changed last June when he had the system disconnected to put an addition on his home and upgrade his electric service. The same month, Sunnova filed for bankruptcy, and the company was sold a few weeks later.
Construction wrapped at Spagnuolo’s home in August, but he hasn’t been able to get Sunnova or SunStrong Management, the company that took charge of Sunnova’s operations, to reconnect his panels. There are still loose wires hanging from the side of his home where his system should be tied into his electric meter, and he hasn’t been able to obtain a final inspection to close his building permit.
In the meantime, his electric bill skyrocketed, yet SunStrong was still charging him hundreds of dollars in lease charges for the panels each month. Unable to get any resolution, he eventually changed his bank account and told them to stop payment.
“I was paying for something I was not receiving,” he said.
On the South Shore, Ali Cash said she spent far too much time trying to get her solar panels back online after they stopped working last summer. She said calling SunStrong tested her sunny disposition.
“Each call that I placed to SunStrong was anywhere from four to five and a half hours,” she said. “Anytime you call, you don’t talk to a service department. You talk to the department who transfers you to the department that will transfer you to the service department.”
She said she only learned her system was down after she received several electric bills in a row during a time of year when her solar panels should be producing the most power, and her electric bill is typically nothing.
“When they tell me that they can see it’s not working, I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have reached out to begin with,” she said. “As a customer, I had to realize it a few months into the problem.”
Cash pays $228 per month for solar panels that didn’t work for half a year, and like Spagnuolo, has also been paying electric bills she wouldn’t have received if her system was working properly. In the Sunnova lease is a clause that says a customer “will not be charged for the System being offline due to Sunnova’s fault.” Despite that, neither Cash nor Spagnuolo was offered credits for the time their systems were down.
They also believe SunStrong needs to strengthen its maintenance response.
“There’s been no follow-up from the company at all, knowing that I’ve been through all of this,” Cash said.
Her system is now back up and running, but Spagnuolo’s is not. After NewsCenter 5 contacted SunStrong, the company sent a technician to his home but could not get it back online without additional equipment. A follow-up visit this week did not happen as scheduled.
Both customers believe SunStrong owes them credits for the time their systems were down, and a company spokesperson said they will “evaluate customer credits, at a customer’s request, once the system is repaired. This enables us to see the full timeline of any outage.” That indicates a customer must actively ask for the reimbursement.
Other solar lease customers experiencing long waits for maintenance should file a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.
Those complaints could be helpful for the state to consider action on solar providers who aren’t responsive.
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