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NY-Sun Residential Customer Protections and Lessons Learned

Comprehensive guide on solar basics, choosing contractors, tax guidance, warranty requirements, and quality assurance in New York's growing residential solar market.

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NY-Sun Residential Customer Protections and Lessons Learned

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  1. NY-Sun Residential Customer Protections and Lessons Learned

  2. New York Residential Solar Market • Over 64,000 residential installs completed to date statewide • 14,584 installs completed with NY-Sun incentives in 2016, 2,545 completed to date in 2017 • Long Island is largest solar market. NY-Sun residential incentives are no longer available in PSEG-LI but market remains robust • Currently, most active residential market is New York City • Current market is roughly even split between direct purchases and third party ownership (leases and PPAs)

  3. NY-Sun Customer Protections Customer education website and guide • Understanding solar basics • Understanding your utility bill, basic service, supply and delivery costs and how does solar affect my bill each month. • Selecting a solar contractor • Questions to ask before signing a contract • Guidance for State and Federal income taxes, real property tax exemptions, sales tax exemptions, NYC real property tax abatement • Advises customers to ask an accountant or lawyer for help reviewing the proposals before signing as they are legally binding contracts

  4. NY-Sun Customer Protections Customer Contract Requirements • Transferable 5 year warranty required for direct purchases • Transferable production guarantee required for leases/PPAs • System description, system size (KW DC), installation schedule and estimate of annual energy output ( kWh) • Anticipated NYSERDA incentive and additional customer-incurred costs • Assignment of Responsibilities • Addendum to Customer Agreement must be signed by both Contractor and Customer • The system cost, lease or PPA rates

  5. NY-Sun Customer Protections Quality Assurance and Compliance program • Codes, technical standards and program rules • Local laws and licensing requirements may apply • NYS licensed professional engineer or registered architect • Photo inspections • Field inspections • Contractor disciplinary actions based on QA scores, misrepresenting the program, illegal actions, or unethical treatment of the customer.

  6. NY-Sun Customer Protections Oversight of commercial projects (including CDG) • Focus on system performance • Currently no specific protections for community solar subscribers through NY-Sun: residential contract addendum does not apply • Customer education website and social media launched, will scale up significantly • New community solar customers likely to surpass rooftop sales in 2018

  7. Customer Inquiries and Concerns • NYSERDA call center receives inquiries via phone and email • Complex questions and concerns are referred to designated NYSERDA program staff • 562 inquiries in 2017 (to date) specific to residential solar • See next slide for breakdown

  8. Customer Inquiries and Concerns • Large majority of 562 NY-Sun customer inquiries were for program incentive information and related topics • 206 inquiries have been referred to NY-Sun staff in 2017 to date

  9. Customer Inquiries and Concerns • Majority of referrals to NY-Sun staff were for more specific program information/questions • Customer confusion on annual net metering “true up”, responsibilities of utilities vs. NYSERDA vs. contractor • 30 inquiries in 2017 to date have been “issues” related to problems with a contractor, project, or system (~1% of completed projects)

  10. Customer Inquiries and Concerns Notes below are based on summary impressions from NY-Sun program staff • ~75% of “issues” are problems typical to residential contracting (not solar/DER specific) • Examples: solar installer tore up lawn during install and did not repair damage; roof leak not being addressed to customer’s satisfaction • Solar-specific issues are mostly related to incomplete or misrepresented information by contractor during sales/marketing process • Customer was promised ”free electricity” or “no utility bill” and is only seeing minimal savings • Customer is planning to move soon, and did not understand that their home buyer must take on existing lease/PPA • Problems appear to be more common with leases/PPAs, and with older customers

  11. Suggestions • Residential solar (mass market) has reached maturity in NY: primary customer protection needs are marketing practices, especially related to cost savings information • Should take into account range of company sizes and products • Requirements for warrantees and production guarantees for NY-Sun projects are sufficient, but should be extended to non-NY-Sun projects • Negligible number of projects now, but will increase as NY-Sun incentives decline • Continued assistance for local code officials and 3rd party Electrical Inspectors.

  12. Suggestions • Community solar presents new but manageable customer protection concerns • Marketing practices, especially as related to cost savings information should be a priority • Emerging best practices for disclosure requirements should be adopted

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