Recheck, a trust and compliance platform for the residential solar industry based in Hanover, New Hampshire, has introduced its new “Recheck Certified” portable credential for solar salespeople.
To earn the credential, a sales representative must complete Recheck’s ethical sales training program, pass a background check and agree to ongoing performance monitoring to ensure they continue to uphold the program’s code of conduct. If the representative violates the code, the certification can be revoked.
The Recheck platform was launched in 2024 as a tool for financiers to verify the identities of individual sales representatives and assign them unique identification numbers that travel with them between companies. The platform currently allows salespeople to obtain a “Recheck Verified” ID by uploading a government ID and adding a personal photo along with information about any licenses they hold.
This form of identity verification is useful to help the finance companies track salespeople, but does not include the more stringent ethics requirements of the new Recheck Certified credential.
The new credential is designed to be specifically helpful to solar installers. Recheck says the Certified credential addresses a gap for companies when they hire solar sales representatives with previous experience, allowing them some certainty over the level of training the reps have received and the standards of ethical conduct they’ve upheld.
“Since the day we launched Recheck, installers have been asking me, ‘This is great for finance companies, but how do I use it?'” said Recheck co-founder and CEO Tim Trefren in a statement. “Recheck Certified is the answer. In a business where reps move between installers all the time, that lets a company onboard any Certified rep with confidence.”
Installer launch partners
Six residential solar installers have committed to adopting Recheck Certified ahead of launch: Better Earth, Energy Service Partners, Our World Energy, SpartanX, Sunsolar Solutions, and Volt Home. The companies together work with more than 5,000 sales professionals who will become Recheck Certified
Trefen, who spoke with pv magazine USA in the days before the launch of Recheck Certified, said that each of the program’s installer partners nominated several representatives to beta test the training. “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive both from the reps and the installers,” he said, noting that the beta testers included some of the CEOs of the partner companies, who wanted to experience what they’d be telling their sales reps to undergo.
One of those CEOs is Val Berechet of Sunsolar Solutions. Following his experience with the training, Berechet said the training “teaches reps to ask the right questions of their company, their leaders, and the market they’re working in.” adding that “the continuous monitoring is what makes the credential actually mean something six months later. I think every finance company should require this.”
In addition to the six initial installers, Recheck says it has a commitment from Palmetto, one of its founding finance partners, which plans to require the new credential for sales reps across its installer network later this year.
Adhering to SEIA’s ANSI standard
In 2023, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) was approved as an accredited standards developer by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). At the time, the organization said it would develop voluntary national standards to improve supply chain traceability, ensure high quality installation and operation practices and protect consumers from bad actors in the solar sales space.
In 2025, ANSI officially approved the finalized consumer protection standard, known as ANSI/SEIA 401-2025, the Solar and Energy Storage Consumer Protection American National Standard. The Recheck Certified credential program is poised to become the first training program to put the standard into place.
“Millions of American households are choosing solar to control their energy costs, and strong consumer protections are essential to maintaining trust in the industry,” said Evelyn Butler, SEIA’s vice president of technical services in a statement. “Recheck Certified is the first training program SEIA has reviewed that covers the ethics and consumer protection sections of the ANSI/SEIA 401 Consumer Protection Standard, and we look forward to helping drive broader adoption of strong national standards across the residential solar market.”
Recheck says its finance partners currently account for more than 90% of all financed residential solar projects, and that it has verified more than 50,000 sales representatives and onboarded over 700 installers and dealers to the platform.
Trefen said he expects more of the company’s existing finance company partners to adopt the Certified credential in the future.
In conversation with pv magazine USA, he recalled something an installer CEO told him years ago: “A good sales rep will never make you rich, but a bad sales rep can make you go bankrupt.’” He added, “there’s a big risk management component in wanting to make sure you are working with good actors.”
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