Going solar isn’t always sunshine and rainbows
In a push to make the grid greener, the government, by way of the Inflation Reduction Act, is offering a 30% tax credit on solar panels and other eco-friendly technology.
This new credit will help save costs on the purchase and installation of home solar panels for many Americans. However, early adopters of rooftop panels have identified a whole host of issues within the solar industry that have made maintaining and repairing these panels costly on their own.
Alana Semuels, senior economic correspondent at TIME, recently bought a house with leased rooftop solar panels. After receiving a shockingly high electric bill, she learned that the panels on her roof weren’t connected to the grid. Even worse, the company who had leased her those panels had gone out of business.
“It’s kinda bananas how many companies that installed solar panels at one point are no longer around,” Semuels said.
Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Alana Semuels about her reporting on the fraught solar panel industry. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kai Ryssdal: The saga of the of the leased panels on your roof is a long one. Give us the short version of how you came to this story.
Semuels: Saga is the right way to describe it. Basically, I bought a house that had leased solar panels, we tried to the best of our ability to make sure that they were working before we bought the house. When we moved in, we got a high electric bill and found out that they were not actually working, even though the company told us that they were. And getting them fixed was not an easy part of the saga.
Ryssdal: So what did you do?
Semuels: Well, I did something that a lot of people can’t do, which is I said I was a reporter, and I wanted to do a story on it. And they got back to me right away. The more common thing for a lot of people with leased solar panels, especially if the company has gone out of business like mine did, is they call in and they wait, and they wait. That’s what’s happening to a lot of people. Fortunately for me, it only took a couple months to get it resolved, although it’s still not fully resolved. I did get some attention because I was a reporter.
Ryssdal: There are new incentives for solar and it is becoming more mainstream, but back eight or 10 years ago they were so expensive, so these systems were often leased. And that’s a whole financial arrangement in and of itself. And as you point out, it can be really problematic and expensive.
Semuels: Yeah, exactly. And you know, there are still a lot of leases today. I think it’s about two thirds used to be leased and now one thirds are leased. And the way that companies often finance these leases, is they package them up kind of like they did mortgage-backed securities, and they sell them. So you have these leases kind of moving around the economy. And it’s possible that the company that owns your leases does not have the best motivations to make sure that your panels are working to the best of their ability.
Ryssdal: Also something you said a minute ago, the company that put your panels on went bankrupt, and you say in this piece, a lot of these companies actually go under.
Semuels: Yeah, it’s kind of bananas how many companies installed solar panels at one point and are no longer around. A lot of companies just don’t make it because solar is expensive. And it’s something that you really have to do right. So, you see a lot of companies that tried this, and it didn’t work. That’s companies that tried this 10 years ago, and companies that try this one year ago. When they go out of business then you’re left as a homeowner with panels from someone that is no longer around.
Ryssdal: You sent a Freedom of Information request to the Federal Trade Commission to find out how widespread some of these problems are. What do you find?
Semuels: Yeah, so the number of complaints to the FTC is database, it’s their fraud database that they share with a bunch of law enforcement agencies, has just skyrocketed since 2020. There are about 5,000 complaints this year and the year isn’t even over. Last year, there were 4,000 in the whole year. There’s a lot of money out there with Inflation Reduction Act, but there’s also a lot of bad actors who are really using this money to make well for themselves, but maybe not well for anyone else.
Ryssdal: Let’s get back to you and your solar panels. You said they’re not quite working yet. How much longer until you can get them working?
Semuels: Well, the company doesn’t seem particularly concerned because they’re working pretty well. I think there’s just one or two that isn’t online, and they have a lot of people who are calling them and saying, “My roof is leaking. My panels aren’t working.” I consider myself lucky to have some of the panels working now and to be getting some power from them.
Ryssdal: Would you do it again?
Semuels: Would I buy a house with a leased solar system? I would try to avoid it. But you know, it’s really hard to buy a house right now. I mean, you’ve covered this a lot, but we were looking for a long time and the cost of the solar panels were a tiny fraction of the cost of the house. We didn’t really think twice about it. We’ve regretted that in the aftermath, but it’s hard to make that be the thing that’s going to stop you from buying a house unfortunately.
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