Sungevity

The products are superior. However the customer service is extremely poor to say the least. The first rainy season the roof developed leaks around the vicinity of the panels. A tech was sent out and it appeared to help. A year later the roof leaked in the same two locations. The tech this time made the determination that it was non solar related . The contact Blake H sent me an email and stated since it was non solar related, that they had no responsibility in the matter. Besides paying to have a roofer fix the roof I would have to pay to have the panels removed and reinstalled myself. Every time I called to speak with someone I was immediately sent to voice mail. The roofing contractor did state that the only way to find the source of a leak is to remove the tiles themselves something the tech sent out never did. So yes I may be saving but at whose expense. Very poor customer service.

Sungevity uses a lot of intermediaries to sell their product. So far Horizon Solar and Solar spectrum is who I have been dealing with. I'm not sure what company will do the actual install. William M, the solar consultant with Solar Spectrum has been always available, even while on vacation in Italy. I think the price I got is comparable to the others but I realize I signed over any rebates to the company. So I believe I could have gotten a better price had I slowed down and tried negotiating a little bit. That being said, I am supposed to receive Monitoring and repairs for free for the next 20 years. Still waiting for install, so we will see how that goes and then I will find out how well it actually produces.

5 stars for the installation experience, 1 star for the service afterwards. I selected Solar Spectrum (Sungevity) due to the extensive walk through of our options when I was getting quotes for our solar system. I felt that I was able to get the best possible system design through my discussions and selected them. Planning and installation went relatively quickly and if it were not for waiting for city inspections and turn-on support from our utility, the overall process would have taken about 2 months. The project manager was very responsive to my questions, and kept me up to date on the scheduling with the city/utilities. After installation, about 8 months from the turn-on of our service, our inverter failed. Unfortunately, it took another 2 months for me to notice that this was an issue when our utility bill arrived and showed a massive usage spike. The online portal for our solar service (SolarEdge) confirmed that we were no longer producing power. Now that I was aware of an issue, getting through customer service was a nightmare. After unsuccessfully going through their customer service phone tree, I tried emailing my installation service manager to find he was no longer with the company. I eventually got another contact number and had a case opened for my service where they quickly confirmed an issue with our inverter. A replacement converter was ordered and another month passed before it was installed. At the end of the first year of our service, we received our yearly true-up bill, which was significantly higher due to 3 months of service loss due to the inverter. I have requested a warranty claim reimbursement for this loss, but nearly 2 months have passed without a response. I continue to wait, and am now writing this review in the hopes that I'll finally get a response. Along with the lack of response on the warranty claim, the customer service team has failed as I understood that they were to monitor the system and provide notification should any element of my solar service fail. This did not occur. TL:DR: Good pre-installation support. Bad post-installation support due to lack of active service monitoring and non-response on my warranty claim. Followup: I included the manager responding to many of these reviews on my warranty query and received a quick response back. It seems if you have an issue, to be sure to include a contact that is not just a generic customer service email account.

I decided to got with Sungevity fka Solar Spectrum based on the reviews of this site. I give it a 4 for overall experience. The sales team is very attentive. I worked with Alex A and he's very proactive and easily reached. He follows up on his potential customers. It was very easy to talk to Alex and he's understanding of your time restrictions. As far as the experience from the sales aspect, it was excellent. However, I don't feel the same way about the installation experience. Sales Experience: As I had mentioned before my sales representative was Alex. I can't say enough good things about him as he was very attentive and understanding. He took account of my needs and submitted them to start the process. Processing Experience: I have to say it was very lengthy, and a lot of documentation was received. Sometimes I felt that I was signing for the same documents more than once. I also received documentation from a few parties and it was a bit hard to follow who my contact was. Sometimes it was Quin Thompson and sometimes it was Alex. Design: After about two months from the date I initiated the process my design was finalized and sent to me for approval. I noticed it was not like the original design but according to the city fire code it could not be completed as it was originally designed. This was understood. Of course this meant that I would have less solar panels than originally planed and my energy production was reduced from 80-something percent to Seventy-something percent (I don't recall the exact figures). The original number of panels were 31 and it was reduced to 24 according to code. The 31 panels was calculated based on the estimated energy consumption given to Alex at the beginning of the process. I believe it's what would have been required for my electricity consumption needs. Installation: It was scheduled almost a month after I approved the design. It was rescheduled for another two weeks due to conflicts in schedule between the installation company and my availability. I did receive a call from someone, it was not Quin or Cristina, but someone else to confirm the installation day and what to expect. I also received an email with the same instructions. However, the day of of the installation it was not how I expected it to be according to the email. There was a team of gentlemen that came first, they introduced themselves as the electricians. They were here for a couple of hours and once they finished the installation of the electrical wiring, etc. they left. Before the electricians left the panel installation company arrived. I expected to be introduced like I was told but that was not the case. I believe there were 4 or 5 techs all together. I was not happy with their behavior, I didn't think they were professional. I even overheard one of them complaining to another tech for not helping as he was taking a nap in the van. They all asked to use the restroom throughout the day which of course I have no problem doing, but and introduction would have been nice since I'm allowing them enter to my home. They left kind of early without finishing installing the rest of the panels and told me that they were not finished and were going to place the remaining panels on the said of the house until the following day to finish. I was not told they needed access to the yard, I have 8 dogs and didn't get a chance to clean up after them that day. I over heard one of them complain and I quote “ I don’t want to get dog (profanity) on my shoes”. That made me feel uncomfortable, I was embarrassed and was not my intention to make their job difficult as I wasn't expecting them to use the side of the house. The next day they came and installed the rest of the panels. I had to take another day off from work so they could finish the installation. The final stages: I received more paperwork and forms to sign. Paperwork was submitted to the power company but we had to wait for them to come inspect the system before they gave the ok to turn the system on. That took about another 2 months. At this point I was concern that the power consumption from the power company was going to overlap with my first loan payment which it was an expense I was not ready for. As I was trying to follow up on the status I tried calling Christina Carroll which was now the project manager and my contact and Alex. Sometimes Alex would not answer to my texts but suddenly I would receive a call from Cristina which makes me believe that Alex was asking Cristina to reach out to me. I received a final bill from the power company but a couple of weeks later I received one more bill from the power company for 3 days of power use. That's when I realized that PSE&G had given the ok to turn the system on. I checked my email and I received an email from Cristina 2 days prior to let me know the system was ready to be turned on. I don't check my emails every day I wasn't aware it was ready, the email contained instructions but I would have appreciated a call to let me know the system was ready to be turned on and perhaps someone to walk me through the process of turning it on. Also, I was told I would receive instruction on how to monitor the system. It wasn't until I sent a text message to Alex to complain that I received a call from Cristina, again indicating he was the one asking herto reach out to me. By the time she called me I was no longer home. I asked her to call me the next day which was a Saturday and she agreed. I told her that I would not be available after 10 am. She called me at 9:31 am. I missed her call and called her right back and left a message for her. She called me back at 10:07 am. once again, I was not home as I had told her before. In the message she left me she stated that she realized the system was working properly and that she would reach out to me on Monday to address any questions. This was the last time I heard from her. I was never provided with proper instructions to monitor the system. It's been 3 weeks since the system was turned on and I received a bill from the power company where I had to pay a for power consumption. In other words, I used more than what I produced. Although this past month has been unseasonably rainy and cloudy, it's still the summer and I'm concerned the system will not meet my needs in power consumption and I'm afraid when winter comes, and days are shorter and cloudy I'm going to consume a lot more power than I will produce and on top of that I will have to pay the loan for the system back. I'm truly worried that this was the biggest and longest (20 year) mistake I have made, and the expectations of saving by switching to green energy will not be a reality of mine. The whole process took very long. I started on February 16, 2018 and it was completed on July 28, 2018.

The experience with Solar Spectrum for the most part was pretty good. TYhat being said, there is an issue thast came up that I found to be unprofessional. The sub contractor assigned to do the installation put in a new power panel. The old panel had everything labeled so we knew which breaker controlled what. When the new panel was installed nothing was labeled. Now this was not noticed until we needed to reset a breaker. There is no way to know without turning on and off each breaker switch. I think this was not the right way to leave this. If I had thought i would have checked it out prior to them leaving and called them on it. I have had power panels replaced before and they were always labeled. Therefor Solar Spectrum might would have gotten a higher rating if the sub contractor had done the job correctly on the panel. Considering what we paid for this system (by the way it works fine) this detail should not be an issue

My major problem with Sungevity is their lack of familiarity with the regulatory process in New York and their failure to provide crucial information I need to obtain my real estate tax abatement and income tax credits bnoth federal and State. They have not sent me any data tohelp my accountant complete these forms. Also the tax abatement form requires a signature from an architect. I do not understand this notr am I prepared to pay an architect to to look at my system and sign off on this. They have never been transparent about the requirements to get these credits and I am about ready to to lose my temper with them. My installation had its final inspection in August, 2015 and works fine. I purchased it and am counting oj these credits to offset the moneys I paid from my retirement funds.

I have been contacted by horizon solar after my first review, the incentive issue was solved. I been told sales person was no longer with the company (not surprised). Again, its all about sales person and project coordinator, get everything in writing and pay attention to plans and project progress. After all project is done, system is approved and working so far. Thank you.

Until my recent customer service experience my experience with Sungevity has been hit and miss. If my rating was based on the sales team and recent customer service experience with Rosanna C the rating would be higher. To this point, Rosanna has been great to work with. She has answered my calls, resolved my issues and has followed up with me when she committed to doing so. It has been much appreciated.

Sungevity is very disjointed. We liked their product and the 12 year purchase / payment option. The process took about 4 months and was delayed by the lack of internal process that Sungevity employs. We are now turned on an all of that is thankfully behind us. The shining star throughout the process was our project manager, Christina C. She gets a 5 Star review for her follow up and perseverance. Thank you Christina!

I sought competing quotes from multiple solar system providers, and chose another. Price was a little lower with the other, but what really made the difference is the in-home consultation rather than phone consultation with Sungevity, and much less sales pitching, which became annoying with Sungevity and ultimately undermined whatever advantages might have been real.

Overall positive experience, they worked with city to get permits, with Eversource for the new meter,and generally keep me informed during the entire process. Their installer was amazing, local contract organization. My main concern is really on the warranties, how long will they be in business, as the warranties are for 20+ years and these companies seem to come and go, buy each other, etc... During our first month of operation (Oct 2017) we have close to a $0 electrical usage, so looking forward to the spring and summer months.

It has been hard to make contact with project manager and since I started with this company approximately six months ago they have had at least three changes with the project manager. Last time I spoke with my project manager I asked when the app for my smart phone would be available to monitor my system she said within a month or two I have not heard back and it's been more than three months other than that the product seems to be working well hopefully I have no issues have not yet my concern would be contacting anyone in the event I have issues.