Sunternal - San Jose, California

Dianna Yen

I waited a year to finally post this review. I went into my solar installation with a 5 star experience. Unfortunately, after the contract was signed and the solar panels installed, the customer service for Sunternal went to non-existent. I was told by the sales agent Brian Nadeau that we would be receiving an additional referral fee because we were installing two homes at once. He made excuses on why it was taking longer to send the check and eventually stopped picking up my phone calls. Ultimately, we never receieved the addtional referral that we were promised.

Noth homes ran into issues with installation. The contractors would show up with incorrect plans or insufficient paperwork that led to delays with the city. After the installation, I spent close to a year chasing down issues between Sunternal, Enphase, and SCE. Everyone pointed their finger at the other but ultimately, it should have been Sunternal's responsibility to make sure all issues were dealt with. In the end, it took me calling every company to make sure the solar system was working correctly and billed correctly. The system works but I would not have gone with them knowing what I know now. Find someone else if you can.

Tu Nguyen

Was given an estimate of 6-8 weeks to get my solar up and running from the time I signed.

I started the process in February 2024 and installation was supposedly completed in April. City inspection did not happen until late May and they had installed my panels incorrectly (crossed the property line of my shared roof with my neighbor). Since then it has been extremely horrible communication. I am always the one who has to follow up weekly to get ANY response. I was also told I would not need to begin any payments until the solar panels are up and running but I have been charged since May.

Every time I try to get an escalation or update from the Sunternal team, they respond with lies and excuses that my solar panels will be fixed "this week." It's always "this week." Well it's been MONTHS.

I'm leaving this pre-emptive review to warn others. They're leaving me in the dark and I'm double paying my bills for the third month in a row now. They tell me I will be reimbursed for the payments and yet I've only seen one check for one month when I have submitted three months worth of bills to be reimbursed for (about to be 4 MONTHS).

Paul Milazzo

These people are thieves! I paid $7K for solar a full year ago and they never installed anything. I asked for a refund 6 weeks ago and managment just keeps stalling. Apparently they don't have a process for returning customers money. Customer Care staff and Max Andes are useless!

DedeQ

Sunternal is a nightmare for us. Since a consultant to our door and gave us a great pitch, until now has been 15 months. Our solar is still not running.
During these 15 months, Sunternal damaged our roof, put a foot through our ceiling, didn’t cover right, that night, storm came and our bedroom ceiling collapsed at 4am. Everything up in the attic and debris from our came into our bedroom. Water everywhere. We try to save our brand new hardwood floor, lots clean up and try to stop water coming in which was not possible since it’s a large hole from the roof.
After the roof. They went dark. Cannot get a hold of anyone from Sunternal. We tried to use other numbers to call. We got someone to answer. The answers was never a solution or a plan to get things done. After 12 months of trying. Panels finally installed and wait for a month to have battery’s installed. Did not passed city. Sunternal threaten us with a lien on our house if not pay immediately with the balance. Even the batteries installed did not passed city inspection. We paid them in full. They went dark again. For months. We can’t get a hold of anyone.
We were in touch with Max, he is new to our case although had heard all of the horrible things happened to us. At this point everything is the city’s fault. I went to the city found out Sunternal did not summit a revision for batteries installation. That’s was 3 months went by.
The latest Sunternal drawn up “battery island” plan did not passed by the city. Not too many house in the city has 9’ radius side yard.
During these time. We try to talk to upper management, which never can. I try to message the CEO Alex Rosenberg on LinkedIn which I have to sign up a special package for. Of course, I was and am ignored. I try to get a touch with Alex Rosenberg on facebook, of course again I’m not acknowledged. We paid Sunternal in full for months now. Our system is still not working. This company has done threats to us, broke our home, took a large sum of our money, humiliated us, causing me personally sick by stress. I don’t know how can some customer be so lucky and give 5 stars rating. ?… be very aware!! The salesman/ consultant came to the door is not the same as the service this company provides. Our nightmare continues…

Sreeram M

The sales agent gave us a sales pitch that if all goes well, solar will be installed in less than 8 weeks. Things sour since then. Its been more than 9 months since we paid them the money. Per Sunternal, city permit has been obtained. Yet, for the past 3 months, we do not get any response. The Operations leader took my call the first time (probably, since she did not know my number) and gave me the excuse that the purchasing agent was out sick. Since then, I have left several voicemails and text with no response. At this point, we are left with no choice but to find options to get our money back. Worst customer service ever.

NOAH LEE

I got installed an year a ago, and everything went really well with the installation. The Sunternal team was very quick to respond my request to install bird nets.
I love the Enphase technology that help me track my productions every day.
Overall I had an excellent experience with Sunternal.

Justin Blumenthal

EDIT: BEWARE!!! This company isn't paying their workers, they lied to me IN WRITING about the PG&E reimbursement rates I would qualify for if I rushed to complete my project, and they simply cannot complete the required application to activate my solar. It's been over a year since I PAID IN FULL and I have nothing but dead weights on my roof and a soaring electric bill.

There are some positive reviews here because the subcontractors they send to your house seem to be decent. But look up the pending lawsuits against Sunternal - they're being sued by multiple groups of workers who claim they weren't paid. This company is ready to cut and run and I feel bad for every customer who is left holding the bag. It's been 1.5 years since I signed my contract and I've been promised a resolution "any day now" by multiple people - only to never hear from them again and eventually discover they left the company.

My positive review that follows was written about Bay Sun Solar when they installed my original solar panels. Sunternal then purchased Bay Sun. When I contacted them because I needed a larger system, my nightmare began. Leaving my old review below for posterity.

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THIS REVIEW IS FOR BAY SUN SOLAR WHO NO LONGER EXIST.

We've had a great experience with our solar project from Bay Sun Solar. The biggest surprise was how quick and simple the installation was. You have to be patient once the contract is signed as you wait for the materials to be ordered and the crew to be scheduled. But once our date arrived, a friendly crew completed everything in one day with minimal intrusion inside the house to access our electric panel. A brief follow up visit from an inspector confirmed everything was good to go. At that point the system was activated, although PG&E took a few more weeks to approve the system and begin crediting us.

Our system was installed in the winter, so the first few months we owed a small amount for electric (~$20). However, now that the weather has warmed up we saw our first bill where PG&E owed us around the same amount. Rather than send checks back and forth, PG&E keeps a running ledger of debits and credits on your account. Once a year we will pay them or they will pay us depending on who comes out ahead. It's great being able to login and see the net amount owed at any time - especially when that amount starts going down during the summer.

The tax credit was also a huge help. Since Bay Sun Solar sells you the system rather than leases it, you get the full credit when you file your taxes. All we did was give our tax preparer the Bay Sun Solar receipt and we received nearly a third of the project cost back in our tax refund. There were cheaper companies we could have gone with but given the large tax credit along with the top notch panel reviews and warranty, it seemed well worth it.

There's also a simple app that tracks our daily, monthly, and yearly energy production, so it's easy to compare month over month to know if we've got extra energy to use compared to the previous month. With two electric cars, it's also like having a free gas station at our house.

One bit of advice: If you think your energy usage may increase once you have solar, use your highest energy bills when estimating the number of panels needed. PG&E will only let you install a certain number based on your previous energy usage. We added an AC system to our house and started charging the cars more often at home since we added solar, so we're glad we went with the maximum panels allowed. With the tax rebate, adding another panel didn't significantly affect the final price.

Anna Lopez

Sunternal Representive Eric was so knowledgeable about the panels and what we needed for current and future use. I did some research beforehand on the different solar companies, there’s just so many and a lot offer you the same services so having someone like Eric and how he answered all our questions and reservations really helped me decide to go with Sunternal. Installation of the panels was so fast the installation team was super great! Overall a great experience and what a cost savings it has been!