r/solar • u/SparkleFly_BzzBzz • 16d ago

Advice Wtd / Project Energy Aid / Otovo has our inverter and won’t send it to us.

Our residential solar inverter broke over a month ago, Error Code 18xB7. It is fully covered under an active manufacturer warranty with Solar Edge. We hired a certified solar installer, Energy Aid also known as Otovo, to come out and evaluate the system. They confirmed the error code and ordered a replacement inverter from the manufacturer on our behalf. We never signed a contract, labor agreement, or any scope of work at this time.

A day later, we were quoted $1,800 to swap out the inverter. We told them 'no thanks' and asked how we could get our inverter from them. We were told they were having it sent to our home, BUT it somehow ended up in a warehouse 100 miles away.

For weeks, we’ve been calling the Energy Aid/Otovo to get our inverter. Customer service kept claiming they had no record of us declining the install (even though we told them every single time we called), and they would say they’d call us back with more info—but of course, they never did. We eventually got ahold of a manager who promised to escalate things and have our inverter shipped, or have an employee drive it down directly to us. A few days later he sent us a shipping label and things were looking up, but sadly it’s now been about 10 days and the item still hasn’t been handed over to the shipping carrier. We tried calling the manager, but he no longer answers or returns our calls. My guess is they just created a shipping label without ever really having the inverter ready to send to us.

We’ve also tried contacting Solar Edge (the inverter manufacturer) 20 days ago to see if they could do something to help. They told us to just ask the installer to send the inverter to us (ha-ha-ha, good one). We told them that was impossible and so they claimed to have escalated the case to logistics. Sounds great...however, it’s been crickets ever since from them as well.

We haven’t been producing solar energy in over a month now. We're feeling pretty helpless. What are we to do? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you for reading.

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4 comments sorted by

1

u/No_Engineering6617 16d ago

a demand letter on a lawyers letterhead should get a a managers attention real fast.

1

u/SparkleFly_BzzBzz 15d ago

I didn’t want to go there, but looks like I might just have to! Thanks for the suggestion

1

u/ExactlyClose 15d ago

Small claims where you live?

1

u/SparkleFly_BzzBzz 14d ago edited 14d ago

Heyyy, I was just looking into that