Pink Energy, formerly Power Home Solar, LLC (PHS), filed a complaint on August 1 against Generac Power Systems, Inc. for selling what it calls “defective” parts and also for failing to “timely communicate” issues with the product. PHS estimates that Generac’s “faulty and defective component parts” cost PHS tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Pink Energy filed the complaint in the state of Virginia (Case 6:22-cv-00043-NKM) due to the large number of customer complaints and service calls in and around Lynchburg, Virginia and other parts of the Western District of Virginia.
The monetary damages noted in the complaint include costs and expenses for sending service technicians out on over 16,000 service calls to replace defective parts, at an estimated cost of over $1,000 per service call. Pink Energy has also had to hire additional customer service team members to field calls and perform service.
Pink Energy states that it has suffered harm to its reputation and goodwill due to the SnapRS product failure, pointing to an “overwhelming” number of negative reviews and complaints on social media, to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and elsewhere. For example, Pink Energy currently has an average rating of 2.02 on SolarReviews. In June the BBB had removed Pink Energy’s A+ rating an issued a consumer alert. The BBB website currently lists 1,057 complaints against Pink Energy.
Pink Energy estimates that it has lost approximately $155,000,000 in revenue from appointment cancellations and increased cancellations of signed contracts, and that the company had been valued at $1.05 billion in September of 2021, prior to the product issues, but that has dropped to $452 million “as a direct and proximate result of the harm Generac’s defective products have caused…”
pv magazine usa reached out to Pink Energy, which declined to comment as the complaint has been filed and the case is pending. However, in an internal letter to Pink employees that was leaked to the internet, Jayson Waller, CEO of Pink Energy said, “One of the most regrettable realities of this entire situation is that our valuable customers have blamed Pink Energy for this unfortunate situation, rather than Generac.”
Pink Energy points to the defective SnapRS as the crux of the problem but says they have been “exacerbated by Generac’s delays” in developing a replacement and delays in supplying a sufficient number of replacements to meet Pink Energy customer needs.
The complaint states that Generac “represented to” Pink Energy that its PWRcell solar and battery storage system could serve as a full-service solar energy and battery storage system for Pink Energy’s customers, indicating that the electrical components were “safe and fit for the purpose for which they were intended”. The complaint also states that Generac represented that it was “experienced and skilled in designing and manufacturing such products”.
Generac and Pink Energy entered into an agreement by which Generac designed and manufactured its PWRcell system to incorporate electrical components to be used in residential solar energy system. Generac’s PWRcell system includes PV Link String Inverters, SnapRS components and more. The SnapRS is an inline disconnect device designed to rapidly shut down power to individual solar panels, as required by the National Electrical Code.
According to the complaint, in 2021 “PHS discovered a melted SnapRS unit during a service call…”. When Pink Energy informed Generac, Generac said it had not previously known of “any such issues related to is SnapRS units ‘melting’”. Pink Energy contends that Generac knew or should have known because other installers were experiencing high rates of failure with the SnapRS connectors.
After two fires occurred at homes with Pink Energy solar that used the SnapRS unit, Generac provided a firmware upgrade, which Pink Energy said was not received by “a significant number” of its customers because their systems were not connected to the internet, despite Generac having what the complaint says is “knowledge of the same”.
In late 2021, Pink Energy customer complaints increased. Upon investigation the company traced the problems to what the Generac inverter coded as a “PVRSS Lockout” system error. In the complaint, Pink Energy noted a “drastic increase” in customer service calls as well as service visits they scheduled to “replace customers’ defective SnapRS units and to clear PVRSS Lockouts.”
Despite Generac providing the SnapRS 801A, which the complaint says Generac represented as a “fix” to the product defect, Pink Energy contends that “Generac knew or should have known” that the defects continued.
The complaint states that Generac acknowledged a 50% failure rate and “incredibly” implied to Pink Energy that it was positive news because it was not 100% failure. Two months ago, Generac’s CEO responded to an email about continued incidents and, according to the complaint, noted that the latest firmware protection was an “interim solution”. Pink Energy contends that it had been a year since the firmware upgrade had been issued and this was the first it had heard that the firmware upgrade was intended to be interim.
In May 2022, in a letter sent to Pink Energy customers and signed by Keith Marett, president-services for Generac Clean Energy Solutions, he acknowledges that customers have had issues with the SnapRS801 or 801A and says that to address the issues Generac is introducing “our next-generation rapid shutdown device, the new SnapRS802, which has been designed and engineered to the highest safety and reliability standards”.
pv magazine USA reached out to Generac and received the following responses from Tami Kou, director of marketing communications and public relations:
“We are disappointed by the allegations being made by Power Home Solar, which was recently re-branded as Pink Energy. We have taken notice of recent news reports and articles citing customer concerns with Pink Energy’s marketing practices and service support. We expect all our independent dealers and distributors to act with integrity and meet high standards in providing customer services.” She added that “Generac stands behind our products. As a company, we have and will continue to honor our customer commitments. We can’t comment on pending litigation. We will be reviewing the matter and intend on vigorously defending ourselves.”
The eleventh paragraph was amended to correctly name Generac as the party that the complaint said had “knowledge of the same”.
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I still blame Pink Energy/Power Home because of their shady sales of a 84K undersize not working system. Look at all of the complaints and you can see that the snaps are only 1% of the SCAM. PINK ENERGY CEO’s JAYSON WALLER AND KEVIN KLINK ARE GOING TO JAIL!!
I couldn’t agree more, I have a 20,000 lawn ornament in my field thanks to his awful business POWER HOME SOLAR.
Unfortunately, Pink Energy is deflecting from the real issue here and looking for someone to blame. They have shady business practices, terrible customers service, do not follow manufacturing instructions when installing panels on people’s homes causing thousand of damage. When escalating a damaged roof – they were not even going to come mitigate the damage for a MONTH! Is this the customer service a $45,000+ system deserves? Hours on the phone, missed days at work trying to save our house from additional damage! I am one of thousands with similar issues. This company spends more time browsing social media trying to shut people up than they do trying to solve problems! If we work towards a resolution, the new “contract” states that all negative social media posts must be removed! Their own employees are posting reviews everywhere trying to combat the truth!! This all sounds to crazy to be true, but it’s the truth. People’s lives are ruined, their homes are ruined, their credit is ruined because they cannot afford a solar panel system payment for something that doesn’t work, in addition to their electric bill.
Powerhome and now Pink Energy has some responsibility in their customer’s dissatisfaction. Their salespeople blatantly mislead clients to close the sale. The customer is told they will have no electric bill for life yet they get 8kW of PV to cover their 28,000kWh of annual usage.
They finance a >$75k debt at 2.99% for 25yr for a system that cuts their bill by 1/3. Therefore, they have the famous solar payment and electric bill that’s > paying the electric company originally.
They create financial turmoil for their customer’s.
Yes, Generac products weren’t ready for prime time but PH/PE is responsible for the massive amount of upset customers.
Back in the early 2000s there was a big push for solar and I laughed just like I did in the 70s Here we are again and the unit where I live (New Bern, NC) has been nothing but trouble and down more than it’s been up. I can only go on what I’ve been told and experienced and PHS (now Pink Energy) had a lot of trouble keeping the unit here operational. After many service calls it eventually was determined that the Generac control unit is the problem. At present, going on 2 years since it all was installed. Very disappointed and still laughing at the solar energy concept.
Pink Energy scammed thousands of customers and know they want to blame Generac for it. I honestly can’t understand why William JAYSON Waller isn’t in jail. Anne Fischer come get the customers side of it story if you are not getting paid like some others by Pink Energy.
I am having issues with my solar hook up right now I keep getting a pvrss lockout error and pink energy has done nothing about they also send people out to review the problem and more then not they don’t have what they need to fix the issue and they tell you that they will be back next week to fix it and they don’t show up or even call you if they can’t make it $84,000.00 for nothing but problems
There have been a lot of local news investigations of PINK. I also follow 2 FB groups who have purchased from PINK & have gotten poor or no solar…just bills from the loan source.
This system I never worked and I would like to see how it does it work. It seems like the only thing works is the building department been trying to get people out here to fix the solar panel issue for almost a year. I know they say they got a solution going on for generac and pink energy but I have not saw it or got an answer for the issues at hand with my system. I wish I knew what I know now because this company seems to be trash.
Powerhome/ Pink energy is a joke. I had my system installed April 2021 it has worked approximately 2 months total with 5 service calls and just had my service call canceled on the 26 of August because Pink energy wants Generac to do the work on the snaps. Warranty your work, take ownership of your product. I can’t even get refunded on the money I’m losing every month to pay for a system that doesn’t work. Only in America.
The person who sold us this product said it would take care of the whole house. Lie! It only does part of the electric! Now we are waiting for someone to fix the recalled pieces. We had a service appt scheduled for yesterday with pink energy and conveniently an email appeared the day before saying that generac will now be taking over the service. Its been 2 months in the heat of the summer with our sat panels not working. Now according to the local company that generac has contracted with., told us it will be 3-4 months before this is fixed. Meantime we are having huge electric bills again. Which is why we went to solar power in the first place. Anyone have any lawyers that can help me with this?
A class action lawsuit needs to be against Pink Energy for breach of contract and fraudulent sales practices. My husband and I was lead to believe that this would be a good purchase for us that would cost about the same as current electric bill until system was paid off. My electric bill was low for about 2 months. The system went active in April 2021. My electric bill has tripled in the last 3 months. They damaged my beams in my attic during installation. We consistently have problems with the system. We got the system “fixed” last month. I was told that the system is broken again. Pink Energy stated that they no longer service the equipment that they installed six months ago. The funny thing is that want their full payment each month. Pink Energy customer service is a joke. You stay on hold for hours for a rep to tell you to call someone else. Something should be done to help the consumer from these unscrupulous individuals.
I understand there is a lawsuit against Generac but why hasn’t pink solar customers come together and bring a suit against pink solar for our loses. Paying for a system that doesn’t work. Seems like with all the upset customers someone has to be an attorney and willing to take it on! they should at least make our solar payments until it is fixed.
Hey, everybody – can’t you see Pink is a victim of Generac like the rest of us, fighting to get a working system out of installers? I’m of the mind that it’s not the installers’ fault after my system continuously fails. Fully operational for less than 4 months of the 15+ months since it was installed.
Generac SOLD the installers. OMG, Generac’s “marketing” course is longer than their training course! The installers bought what Generac was selling.
Do you know how much Generac has spent on advertising in the last two years? Billboards everywhere here (CA) and non-stop TV commercials. The amount is knowable since Generac is a publicly traded company. How can they keep SELLING PRODUCTS THAT DON’T WORK?
Not to absolve the installers. They knew or should have known about the myriad technical issues that have plagued the PWRCell line for years now. They are losing tons of money. Why are THEY still selling Generac crap?
Before my snaps went bad, they were already a terrible company! I had three failed inspections and the snaps had NOTHING to do with it! The company is deflecting and want someone to blame for their inconsistencies, lies, and terrible service. I regret the day I signed the contract with them.
I have 30,000 dollars worth of crap on my roof. My taxes went up. My mortage went up. And I’m paying my electric bill plus the 30 thousand dollars loan. Not sure what to do. Any information would be appreciated. I hope they rot. I guarantee the owner has a lot of money stashed somewhere. Attorney General of Virginia should get involved. All we tried to do was improve things. All we got was screwed.
I am not happy with my system. It only works in the clean energy back up mode. It only backs up half the circuits that the sales person promised and puts out less power. I never expected to make money on the system but I thought it would work properly at least until the ten year warranty expired. I plan to pay off the loan early but why would a bank make a 25 year loan on a ten year system?
I’ve been dealing with Pink Energy ever since they were started as PowerHome Solar. From day one my system hasn’t worked as promised nor what i paid for. I’ve been fighting with them for two years and now they have gone bankrupt and left me with a 50k system that has not warranty nor works properly! I’ve reached out to my Attorney General’s office in Indiana with no luck and left out to dry! How is it there’s no protection from crooks like this? What about Comsumer rights and protection? There’s seems to be no help! Nothing but lies and deceit from the beginning.
The people at Generac have been the only people I have had to respond to this. They are placing former PinkEnergy customers here with a new company, and they have promised to replace my SNAPS. I paid cash for mine . I have faith that a company such as Generac with 60 years of providing customers with solutions is going to fail to do what is right. Blaming Generac is typical Jayson Wallet Behavior. I trust Generac to do what’s right. My wife’s uncle farms a huge farm and trusts Generac for his Generator needs. They are not going to screw people over with their reputation at stake , that is bull. They will not risk losing the trust of customers, farmer, business, and homeowners for a PissAnt carpetbagger company like PHS/aka/ PE. They are working really hard to get companies to pick up the damage that this flim flam company has done. I trust Generac all the way to get it done . I invested in Solar because of my wife’s uncles experience with Generac. They aren’t going to throw that trust away.
The cause of there demise was lack of knowledge. None of there workers were trained properly. There was zero communication. They sent works for service calls that had know idea what they were supposed to do. The equipment was not what caused the fire in our home in March. It was the installer. Thanks to Pink Energy our entire house had to be gutted. 8 months and still not back in our home. Pink Energy is just trying to deflect the issues by blaming the equipment. The owner of the company needs to man up and take responsibility for what his company did to thousands of people. The company grew to quick and instead of taking care of the customers they already had they got greedy and kept taking on more till things spiraled out of control.
There are 3 of us in my block that yep got screwed. So I continue to pay on this and get no service. I called a Generac dealer in the area they said they know nothing about this. So now I just pay and worry about it being a fire hazard. Boy did we get screwed.
To whom it may concern
before we contact consumer affairs and BBB we will try to get you cooperation about our sola acting up again we have had nothing but problem with this and in July we thought it was corrected i guess we were wrong it is doing the same thing. we are getting no reading and showing there is no solar being produced for 2 days and again with no end in sight. we need someone to contact us ASAP and send someone to correct this issue.
Thanks