Sunpower Solar review: Solar system

Sunpower Solar Situation

To whom it may concern:

My wife and I wanted to improve our electric bill situation and solar seemed to be the way to go. In a conversation with a Sunpower Representative, my wife Tiew and I about 2 years ago about buying a Solar system. He explained to us that he would install a customized solar system on our roof at no cost to us and we just had to pay a monthly fee for 20 years. The monthly payment fee would increase about $5 each year because the cost of electric will increase each year and we will pay off the system after 20 years with the total payments of $62,757.90. Then Sunpower will maintain the system for 25 years, five years after we own the system and that was a good feature. We wanted to save some money, increase the value of my home and help the environment. We thought it would be a good thing when the system was paid off that the electric cost would be very small for this property and the way of the future.

Unfortunately, my wife passed away last February and now I want to sell my house and move. I called Sunpower to get a payoff on the solar system and was informed I had a lease and was not buying the system. You know, I didn't mind paying more some months with solar, because I had the understanding that I was buying the system. I was very upset and checked the contract Sunpower gave us.

First of all, when I looked at the contract Sunpower gave us, I had never seen this first page before because I would never have agreed to it. I noticed my signature is not mine. It was electronic and seems suspicious. It also states upon a house sale, the system may be purchased pursuant to the terms of Section 11 (a) (i) that was on page 11 and that page was a completely blank sheet of paper. I find it odd that page 11 was the only page that didn't print in a 16-page contract with 10 exhibits where all the other pages printed fine. That also seems suspicious.

In our conversation with the Sunpower Rep. before we bought the system, we were told we would save money on our electric bill and we believed him. At this point, I wanted to prove that the Solar System was a good deal so a new buyer would take over the lease. Well, I did an analyst of the cost of the KW usage for NV power vs Sunpower and it costs more with Solar than without solar. For example, in this past November in 2022 it cost me over $133.00 more for that month's electric with the solar system then if I just stayed with NV power.

Therefore, since I was misinformed by your rep. and the solar system is an expense, not an asset as advertised, I need you to remove your system in the next 30 days before my next payment and since I already paid Solar about 2X more for the cost per KW than NV Power cost per KW, I expect a refund of ½ of all my payments to Solar to correct your bogus sale. If you do not comply., I will go public with my analysis informing everyone about the hill of beans you are selling. You should have a follow up with your customers to monitor their system's performance and if it is providing what you said it would do when you sold it.

After analyzing November, I decided to analyze every month with the Solar and the results are the expenses are unacceptable. Since the system was installed, I calculated that the Solar system cost $3,762.95 more that if I just stayed with NV Power. I have this all documented by month based on the NV Power invoice meters.

I paid Sunpower a total of $5,933.74 in monthly fees to date and expect a partial refund. Your cost per KW was almost double the NV Power cost per KW. My calculations for the entire time the system was installed show NV Power cost per KW was $0.1053 and the Solar cost was $0.1942. What really scared me is the thought of if I didn't want to sell my house, I would have been kept paying these monthly fees and never found out until 20 years later I didn't own the system! Unless you can prove to me that I can sell this system to the next owner, I need it removed and you need to repair any damage to my roof.

Sincerely,

William Ronca

4279 E New York Ave

Las Vegas, NV. 89104