Despite increases in solar installers, number of scams remain small

California solar installer sentenced for numerous scamsLast week, Peter Davidson of Sausalito, Calif., was sentenced to a 10-year prison term and ordered to pay $195,456.54 in restitution to homeowners whom he scammed over solar installations. But, despite the exploding solar industry in California, such fraud has not grown much.

The California Contractors State License Board (CSLB) started investigating Davidson’s solar business, American Sun Solar Company, in 2008. Turns out, Davidson, who lost his contractors’ license in 2002, was using other contractors’ license numbers to solicit the sale and installation of more than 20 solar energy systems in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, according to a press release from the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office, which pursued the case.

Despite the growth of the industry, scams related to solar installers have not grown much, said CSLB spokesperson Melanie Bedwell, and they may be headed down.

“There were no spikes, no upward trends. As compared to this particular person who was jailed this past week—that could be in any trade,” she said.

Some of the victims paid a lot of a solar systems’ costs upfront to Davidson and received nothing. Others received partially completed, improperly installed systems. Still other victims paid $1,000 upfront, according to the attorney general’s office.

Yet, other homeowners received a solar array, but ended up with liens on their homes because Davidson didn’t pay solar product suppliers with the homeowners’ money.

“Many of Davidson’s victims were elderly, and some were disabled,” the office said.

“The conviction and sentencing that was in the news this week is representative of occasional criminal schemes that are used by unscrupulous individuals to defraud consumers with their predatory business enterprises,” Bedwell said.

The board receives about 20,000 complaints annually. The number of solar-related complaints went from 39 between 2007 and 2008 to 95 between 2009 and 2010, according to agency statistics. At its peak, that’s less than half a percent of overall complaints. But between July 2010 and March 2011, the agency had only received 44 such complaints. And not all complaints are directly related to scams.

“The solar technician industry is growing vastly right now. It’s kind of a popular branch of the construction industry that’s going to have some issues,” she said. “The use of solar and other clean energy technologies is much more prevalent in the news and is a trade that many more contractors are venturing into.”

Still, that’s not comforting to Davidson’s scammed customers.

Image courtesy of NREL.