Government and industry take aim at shady solar sales practices

As a solar trade publication, the Solar Power World editorial team regularly hears about bad apples in the industry — especially when it relates to other contractors in installer service territories. But recent high-profile residential solar company closures, coupled with growing public interest in solar, have made even the federal government pay attention to ethics in residential renewable energy.

“It’s not uncommon in a rapidly growing industry where information has not yet [been] standardized, for there to be bad actors who move in, and we’ve been seeing reports of that happening in the solar industry — both people that are spreading misinformation as well as others who are engaging in predatory business practices,” said Becca Jones-Albertus, director of the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO).

To cut down on these problems, SETO is working with other government agencies, including the Dept. of the Treasury, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Trade Commission, on a holistic solar consumer protection and education plan. The groups are dedicating resources to educating consumers before they buy, as well as encouraging them to report solar company fraud.

“Each of our agencies has a role that we play here, and we’ve all been tracking these reports of bad business practices closely. I think all of us were looking to do something and to have the greatest impact by working together,” Jones-Albertus said.

The groups have published many educational guides, including what to know before buying solar panels, before leasing solar panels and before signing community solar contracts. The guides encourage consumers to look for red flags like high-pressure sales and misleading messaging about cost savings.

“Similar to any kind of purchase, you want to be on the lookout for very pushy sales tactics,” Jones-Albertus said. “I think some other important questions are understanding who the person is who’s selling to you, and their relationship to the company. Are they part of the company that’s going to be doing the installation, and who do you call if you have an issue?”

Along with the federal government’s efforts, some states with booming solar markets are working on specific consumer protection legislation.

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Solar Consumer Protection Act into law in March 2024, which requires solar contracts to explicitly disclose certain costs and clearly state system performance expectations, according to the Washington Solar Energy Industries Association. Also in March 2024, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed the Home Solar Energy Amendments bill into law, which prohibits the start of rooftop solar installation for seven days after a contract is signed and mandates a 10-day refund grace period if a homeowner decides to back out, according to Deseret News.

“I think that state consumer protection laws are going to be very important to this,” said Ben Zientara, solar policy analyst for review and referral website SolarReviews. “I’m hoping that between ethical actors in the industry and legislatures, we can come up with a boilerplate bill that says, ‘These are the baseline things that are required to protect consumers.’”

SolarReviews

Zientara lives in Portland, Oregon, and gets half a dozen solar salespeople knocking on his door every month. Competition is fierce in regions like his, but there are still ways to do business fairly. Zientara said the best companies have in-house sales teams that have a stake in every sale.

“We find that those [more ethical] installers are smaller installers that operate in the local or regional areas — small, maybe three states, who intimately know the AHJs they’re working with so they can make sure that they know the interconnection requirements, and that they dot all their I’s and cross all their T’s on their applications and understand what homeowners in that area need,” he said.

“The companies that we’ve seen failing — these big, giant companies who grew too fast and spread out all across the country — thought they could apply the same ideas to different markets, and that hasn’t proven to be true at all,” he continued.

SolarReviews is a review website where consumers can research local installers and solar equipment, and find information about navigating the residential solar sales process and understanding policies and rebates that help bring down costs. They can then choose to receive quotes from the company’s network — which is how SolarReviews makes money.

In the review portion of the site, SolarReviews includes an “expert” rating, where its internal team develops a score out of five based on objective criteria like company licenses and insurance coverage, litigation background and time in business. Any homeowner can submit a review of their installation company, which is reflected in the “consumer” rating. The SolarReviews team verifies that each submission is made by a real person.

Zientara said platforms like SolarReviews are an important and quick way for customers to get information before signing a consequential contract.

“I think the biggest challenge that we face is that people aren’t necessarily interested in spending 20 or 30 hours researching how to go solar — what the best policies are, how incentives work, all that stuff. And I think, hopefully, continued consumer education and awareness campaigns can help steer people in the right direction,” he said.

Recheck

Another style of registry, Recheck, recently launched an online database specifically for solar salespeople. Recheck was established to give lenders like GoodLeap, Palmetto and Mosaic a place to vet new salespeople before giving them access to financing products.

Before Recheck, salespeople typically just signed up to sell solar leases and loans on these finance platforms using a Gmail account. Solar finance companies had no way of knowing the real identity of a salesperson, making it easy to mask any previous issues that could reflect poorly on a solar financing company. CEO Tim Trefren set out with his partners to create a solution for these trust issues.

Creating a Recheck account requires a valid photo ID and matching photo to verify a user’s identity. Salespeople can also list their licenses and certifications and will soon be able to add a background check.

“It is really just the first step that enables adding a bunch more transparency to the sales process, making sure that we know that everybody involved in a sales process can be tied back to their real identity,” Trefren said.

Recheck profiles follow individuals throughout their solar sales career, even if they change companies.

“This is really helpful, because this is an industry with a lot of turnover. People are jumping around all over the place, and so having it all tied back to that one Recheck account is really helpful for people that are trying to get a better understanding of: Who are these people? Have there been issues in the past?” Trefren said.

SEIA supports Recheck, and the two entities are working together to drive adoption of SEIA’s upcoming American National Standards Institute-accredited Consumer Protection Standard and the Recheck registry.

“We think that the vast majority of the people in this industry are in it for the right reason, and there are a small number of bad actors who are causing broad backlash, in some cases, or just a reputational harm for the industry as a whole,” Trefren said. “Our hope is that by working together with so many groups within the industry, we can help solve that problem and accelerate the rate at which we deploy solar.”

Like any industry, solar is susceptible to bad business practices. The private sector and government are paying attention and working in tandem to clean up the market and help the public become smarter solar consumers.