Solar systems installer says faulty Generac equipment led to massive job cuts

US energy efficiency company Pink Energy said today it has had to lay off more than 1,000 employees this year following a massive wave of complaints from upset customers whose solar arrays were allegedly affected by failing parts supplied by Generac Holdings Inc (NYSE:GNRC).

The company is currently suing Generac, urging it to issue a national recall on one particular solar component and to take over responsibility for all future services related to Generac products.

North Carolina-based Pink Energy, which offers solar panels in a complete energy-savings package for residential customers, says it has been using Generac’s SnapRS inline disconnect devices as part of nearly every one of its solar installations since 2020.

The purpose of these devices is to rapidly shut down power to individual solar panels as required by the National Electric Code. However, Pink Energy says that in the case of the SnapRS, the unit has been turning on and off repeatedly, thus affecting the solar production at the homes of thousands of Pink Energy customers. Moreover, some are believed to have caused at least two fires at customer homes.

Generac’s initial response has been to release a firmware update, which, Pink Energy claims, had not fixed the issue but, instead, actually shut down portions of the customer systems to prevent potential thermal events, thereby affecting their power production.

In its latest statement, the company says that this unresolved situation has forced it to cut about 500 jobs today in addition to roughly 600 lay-offs earlier this year.

In the ongoing lawsuit, the company claims it has reason to believe Generac has refrained from disclosing that the firmware update was only an "interim solution" until a third-generation SnapRS part arrived. Pink Energy says it has only been informed about this ten months later in June 2022.

Since the issues first occurred, the company has replaced some 50,000 SnapRS itself, it said, adding that it is even seeing failures in other Generac component pieces.

"We trusted Generac because of its status as a publicly traded company to be honest and open about its firmware update being a permanent fix, and it was not. That's led to thousands of unhappy customers and crippled all parts of our business, leading to our layoffs," Pink Energy CEO Jayson Waller said. According to him, other sector players have also complained about experiencing these issues with Generac solar products.

Pink Energy also mentioned it has experienced an influx of 30,000 inbound customer calls per month in relation to the faulty equipment, which is “many times higher than its historical level of only 800 calls per month.”

The company has terminated its relationship with Generac.

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