ComplaintsforHawaii Energy Connection LLC

• Initial Complaint

  06/05/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  In summer 2022 3 of my solar panels werent producing power like the rest of the other 37 panels. I kept calling and calling Hawaii Energy Connection but theres only a recording. Nobody got back to me for a while then someone finally called and said they will change 3 inverters of the faulty panels. Nothing changed. Months passed by and they called me and said they had to change out the solar panels. They also said they were having issues with the supplier. They dont return my calls. Now theres a total of 10 panels not producing energy like the rest of the panels. The past 3 months my electric bill was $70, $60 and $30. Prior to any of these issues form last year my electric bill was only $20. I have 40 panels on the roof with only me and my wife. No electric vehicles. We are only in the house ***** hours a day as both of us has multiple jobs. The reason we wanted solar panels was to reduce the cost of our electric bill. They just need to change our panels which is still under warranty.

  

  Business response

  06/19/2023

  The goal at HEC is to meet and exceed our customers expectations to establish a top in class support section for our customers.  Unfortunately, with the recent increase to Hawaiis electric rates, we have been inundated with calls from concerned customers and non-customers with questions about their high bills. This increase in requests has exceeded our current customer support capability and we are actively recruiting additional staffing to meet the increased volume of support calls.

  Our supplier is actively looking for a replacement panel for this system.  Unfortunately, the panel that needs to be replaced is obsolete and the available panels exceed the current layout of his system. We will continue to work with our supplier to provide options.

  After reviewing the concerns that were provided by ***************** regarding his inverters, we reached out to the manufacture Enphase and they believe that there is interference or "noise" that could be contributing to the inverter issue. W e did reach out to him on 6/9 and our tech crew was able to go to his residence on 6/16 to assess his system.  Once the review has been completed, we will provide our findings.  In the meantime, we will continue to update ************ on the status of our findings, as well as his replacement panel.

  Customer response

  06/22/2023

   
  Complaint: 20147886
  
  I am rejecting this response because: On Friday June 16 I called **** (operations manager) at 12pm. I told her when will the workers come to my house because the appointment was at 9am and it's now 12pm. She said she forgot about the appointment time and that they would be there at 2pm. When they arrived they went on the roof, looked into the electrical box and said the office will get a hold of me. No one called! Today is Thursday 6/22 I called ****. She said she forgot all about me but will bring a crew to my house tomorrow at 2pm. This will be the 2nd time I have to take off from work. I usually finish work @4:30p and get home at 5:30p. **** did not even explain to me what the problem is? If the panels are obsolete then they should replace it all because in the the future more panels will start failing. My system is still under warranty. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *****************

  

  Business response

  07/03/2023

  We did follow up on the details of **************** rejection to our reply.  We spoke with ************ on 6/27/23 about his complaint and clarified that his initial concern was a higher electric bill. He was used to a $30 bill, but that it has increased up to $60. We explained that HECO rates have gone up over 50% in the past six months and that our company continues to receive many calls about this issue. I also explained that the system seems to be doing fine, when compared with his energy production from 2013. We did notice that the inverter grid profile was incorrect and has since been changed. We informed ************ that we would keep an eye on the site for a day or two and follow up.  He does need his panels cleaned and provided him with contact information.

  On 6/28, we followed up again with ************, notifying that all of his panels are reporting and making power. All panels seem to be reporting more consistent power levels after the grid profile update. We ended the conversation saying that we feel his system is in good working order. We told ************ to contact us if he needs further assistance.

  Customer response

  07/15/2023

   
  Complaint: 20147886
  
  I am rejecting this response because: First of all. I did not say I was used to $30 electric bills. My bills were always under $20. There's 40 panels on my roof and only me and my wife living in the house. We are full time workers that work 50 hours plus a week so we are hardly home using electric. The panels are under 10 years old.

  I cleaned my panels by a professional solar panel cleaning company. The contact information that I got from *****/**** did not return my phone calls or emails. So I'm not sure if it was fake or not. After cleaning it there still is one panel that stands out. That inverter was changed out in March. Back in June I got an email from Hawaii Energy Connection and it says the next step after changing the inverters will be to change the panels if the inverters does not work.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *****************

  

  Business response

  08/03/2023

  New solar panels have changed in dimensions, as they are now slightly larger.  Therefore, our team went to **************** home on 8/2/23 to measure his current panel layout to ensure that a replacement panel would fit onto his system.  We were able to confirm that it will fit and upon receiving the replacement panel from our distributor, we will reach out to ************ to schedule the installation.

  Customer response

  08/06/2023

   
  Complaint: 20147886
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  This panel problem has been going on since last year. Yes they did come to my house and measured if the new panel will fit. But no one has yet to call me to schedule an installation date. I will not be satisfied until the new panel is on ******* and working. This is all under warranty and I don't know why it's taking so long. November makes 1 year since I first started this process.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *****************

  

  Business response

  08/31/2023

  Our Operations Manager ************************* has been in contact with ************ and updating him on the process of his claim.  We finally received his replacement panel and did the installation on 8/11/23.  

  Customer response

  09/03/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *****************

• Initial Complaint

  05/05/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  i have been in contact with hawaii energy connection since january 2023 about my pv system not reporting energy production. i had one response that described how to reboot the system/modem and that if they came out to trouble shoot, the fee would be $100. i replied that i made many attempts to reboot without success. i asked for and was willing to pay for the trouble call. i have not heard from hawaii energy connection except for that one text message.

  

  Business response

  05/16/2023

  On 5/5/23, a representative from our customer service department did reach out to ********************** to address his complaint.  It was found that a solar panel and inverter had gone bad.  We did schedule an appointment with ********************** and replaced these on 5/8/23. Our customer service representative did provide customer with her direct number, should he need to contact ** again.

   

  Customer response

  05/16/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *******************************

• Initial Complaint

  04/13/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I initially placed a call to report a problem with my solar panels - I believe one of the inverters was not working. This was in February 2023 Someone called and said they need to contact the manufacturer to see if it was under warranty and they would get back to me. About a month later I started to try to follow up on my issue. I left numerous messages on their tech line, their marketing line, their accounting line - Seems like nobody is working there. I have been trying for over a month now. I have even left message on their email contact information to no avail. Are they out of business? It seems like it. Even their new sales phone line does not return my calls.

  

  Business response

  04/24/2023

  The goal at HEC is to meet and exceed our customers expectations to establish a top in class support section for our customers. Unfortunately, with the recent increase to Hawaiis electric rates we have been inundated with calls and emails from concerned customers with questions about their high bills. This increase in requests has exceeded our current customer support capability and we are actively recruiting additional staffing to meet the increased volume of support calls. After reviewing the concerns that were provided by ************************ review, technical department did reach out and spoke to him on 4/24 and have scheduled an appointment on 4/28 to look into the situation with his system.

• Initial Complaint

  03/28/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I have made multiple attempts to contact Hawaii Energy Connection by leaving multiple ******************** Your text messaging system does not work. Very poor customer service department that only has an answering machine to take the calls. No physical person to handle calls. I still haven't heard back either by phone call or email for my issues. How can you claim to be Hawaii's Best Choice for Solar when your company has the worst customer service? It's so difficult to get in touch with anyone because nobody answers the phone. My solar system hasn't been working properly for a month now and I'm very unhappy. Who's in charge of the customer service department? I want a direct phone number to this person. I don't want the generic number that takes you to the answering machine.

  

  Business response

  04/13/2023

  We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience raised from your complaint to us and we promise to work at correcting this matter and improving our overall customer experience.  
  Our customer service is a key component to our operation here at Hawaii Energy Connection (HEC) and we strive to provide informative updates and prompt responsiveness to our customer and their concerns.  The goal at HEC is to meet and exceed our customers expectations to establish a top in class support section for our customers. 

  Unfortunately, with the recent increase to Hawaiis electric rates and multiple manufacturers recalls, we have been inundated with calls from concerned customers with questions about their high bills. This increase in requests has exceeded our current customer support capability and we have recently added additional staffing to meet the increased volume of support calls.
  

  After reviewing the concerns that were provided, we were able to reach out to you and identify that there was a misunderstanding about the service that was scheduled to be provided in early March, in which resulted in you cancelling the appointment. Once the miscommunication was identified, we scheduled our technicians to return to the site and complete the required service and as of 3/29/23, the issue has been resolved and your system is operating as intended.
  

  Thank you and we appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate through this increase in customer support calls.

  Customer response

  04/14/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *************************

• Initial Complaint

  02/28/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I have made multiple attempts to contact Hawaii Energy Connection by leaving multiple voice mails. I have heard nothing back. I have purchased panels and simply want information on two items: my enphase envoy will not connect and I am interested in purchasing microinverters. I have left this message each time. There doesn't seem to be any other way to get help from them. I really disappointed.

  

  Business response

  03/01/2023

  The goal at HEC is to meet and exceed our customers expectations to establish a top in class support section for our customers.  Unfortunately, with the recent increase to Hawaiis electric rates, we have been inundated with calls from concerned customers and non-customers with questions about their high bills. This increase in requests has exceeded our current customer support capability and we are actively recruiting additional staffing to meet the increased volume of support calls.
  
  After reviewing the concerns that were provided by *******************************, we did reach out to her on 3/1/23 and were able to identify that her Envoy (PV monitoring system) is no longer working and instructed her on how to order a replacement. At this point we are unable to determine if any of her inverters are not working until the new Envoy is installed.  Customer will reach back to us upon receiving her Envoy for further instructions.
  

• Initial Complaint

  02/16/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I called in October requesting that my water heater be repaired, I was told it would be 4-6 weeks possibly before anyone would be able to repair it. It has been over 4 months! I called multiple times with no responses. Left messages, emailed and no one has responded. This is unacceptable. This should be covered under warranty

  

  Business response

  03/01/2023

  The goal at HEC is to meet and exceed our customers expectations to establish a top in class support section for our customers.  Unfortunately, with the recent increase to Hawaiis electric rates, we have been inundated with calls from concerned customers and non-customers with questions about their high bills. This increase in requests has exceeded our current customer support capability and we are actively recruiting additional staffing to meet the increased volume of support calls.
  
  After reviewing the concerns that were provided by ******************, we did contact him on 3/1/23 and have scheduled one of our technicians to assess and repair his water heater under warranty on 3/14/23.
  

• Initial Complaint

  02/07/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  KumuKit are not returning any calls for customer and technical support for our pv panels. We have left numerous messages week of January 30th and again today Feb 6. There is no way to talk to a live person. We keep getting a recording but no call back

  

  Business response

  02/17/2023

  We did reach out to *********************** and explained our delay in getting back to her in a more timely matter.  Since many of our customers have seen an increase in their electricity bills due to the raised Hawaiian Electric rates by 50%, we have been overwhelmed with calls requesting for their PV systems to be checked.  We've also been receiving calls from customers not installed by us which are also flooding our voicemails.  We were not prepared to take in the volume of calls regarding the high utility increases.  We are currently working answering customer calls as best we can and are seeking to expand our resources.

  We did confirm that *****'s Enphase monitoring system was non-communicating from her PV system and therefore sent her instructions on how to reconnect to her monitoring system.  She did reach back out to us on Wed(2/15) to confirm that she was able to get her monitoring system back up.  We followed up with her again yesterday (2/16) and all seems to be working fine.   

  Customer response

  02/17/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************

• Initial Complaint

  01/10/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Hawaii Energy Connection/Kumu Kit installed 22 solar panels on my home in 2012. Of these currently 10 are not producing. I called Hawaii Energy Connection/Kumu Kit at the beginning of October 2022 to discuss the problem and they said that they would open a ticket and would find out if the problem was wiring or the panels but the issue would be repaired or replaced under warranty. Since then I have called and left dozens of voice messages, I have also used the email and text support options to contact them and have not received a single response or update. Im unsure if there is someone working on the matter, if the business is still operational or what next steps I need to take to resolve this issue. I have called other solar contractors for assistance and they say that I need to contact the company that installed the panels. In 2018 I also paid a deposit to add additional panels to my house with Kumu Kit and a permit was filed with the county for the installation for this has still not been done and I have not had any follow up on how to proceed. I would like someone to contact me from the company and update me on both my existing system and the addition. I understand that if there is a warranty issue some of this may be out of their control but they need to update their customers on the status and give them an estimate on when to expect a repair to be done. Im super frustrated that im paying so much in electric every month when the original system they installed was suppose to cover this.

  

  Business response

  01/23/2023

  We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience raised from your complaint to us and we promise to work at correcting this matter and improving our overall customer experience. 
  
  Our customer service is a key component to our operation here at Hawaii Energy Connection (HEC) and we strive to provide informative updates and prompt responsiveness to our customer and their concerns.  Unfortunately for this matter, we were unable to address this as quickly as we had anticipated as we had come across and unidentified issue within our call center that have contributed to some delays. 
  
  
  Upon you contacting us in October 2022 to discuss your situation regarding your panels not working, we did open a service ticket in our technical department on 10/16/22 to look further into your system.  We were able to track down the specific cause of your system to be inoperable, which were two (2) inverters.
  
  
  Unfortunately, the inverter warranty process is external to us (HEC) and any updates for change of status, equipment availability and/or projected timelines are controlled by the manufacturer, Enphase.  Therefore we could only be able to provide updates when they are received from Enphase and if  updates arent provided then we must default to still pending or no change, which does not fall in line with our internal goals for customer service.  
  
  
  Coincidentally, we were notified on Friday (1/20/23) from Enphase that they had shipped the replacement inverters on 1/14/23. Since then we unexpectedly received the two (2) replacement inverters from Enphase , as they were supposed to have been shipped directly to you directly by the manufacturer (Enphase), but ended up shipped to our office on Oahu instead. We have since prepared to ship them to you on 1/24/23 via USPS.
  As this claim falls outside of our 5-year courtesy labor for manufacturers equipment warranty of the original purchase in 2012, and since July 2021 we no longer have an installation presence on Hawaii Island and have authorized *************** in **** to provide support services to all Big Island-based KumuKit customers. 
  
  
  We will continue to work with Enphase to improve this process by either requesting that they provide HEC with an update at a higher frequency or provide a direct number in which our customers speak directly to Enphase for an update. 
  
  
  Your information allowed us to identify multiple areas in which we reviewed, evaluated and corrected to improve our overall customer experience.

• Initial Complaint

  09/13/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  on 3/2/22 initial ticket was initiated for a micro-inverter on 3/24 I called to inform Hawaii energy Connection that I had another micro-inverter that was not working.on 4/20 I called to find out what is the status of the micro-inverters, the reply was it was still pending.5/18 I called again to find out the status, I was told it was still pending and that he was going to call the company.5/22 I got an email stating that it was approved and waiting for the parts.As of 8/16, I got NO information regarding the status 8/17 I called and finally got someone to return my call. The person I talked to said that the parts are in andthey will have someone come out on the 17th or 18th to install the parts, no one called or showed up!8/24 I called and left message, No return call!!8/30 I called again and left message and finally someone returned my call. I was told to talk to the scheduling person and leave a message on her phone message. She did not return my call!9/6 I called again and left message again. Someone retuned my call and was transfering the call to the Installatio manager, I got cut off and no one returned my call!It is now 9/13 and still no response from Hawaii Energy Connection. My Complaint is why does the customer have to chase the company? I got no follow-up information from them.I'm very disappointed. with this Company!

  

  Business response

  09/23/2022

  Thank you for bringing this important matter to our attention.  I would like to sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this issue *** have caused you and we promise to work at correcting this matter and improving our overall customer experience.  Our customer service is a key component to our operation here at Hawaii Energy Connection (HEC) and we strive to provide informative updates and prompt responsiveness to our customer and their concerns.  
  The goal at HEC is to meet and exceed our customers expectations to establish a top in class support section for our customers.  Unfortunately for this matter, we were unable to meet that goal.
  After reviewing the concerns that you have provided, we were able to identify a few areas that required a thorough deep dive into the process. In efforts to improve the customer experience we needed to review any available opportunities that could increase the status updates for our customers. Unfortunately, the inverter warranty process is external to us (HEC) and any updates for change of status, equipment availability and/or projected timelines are controlled by the manufacturer, Enphase.  Sadly, HEC will only be able to provide updates when they are received from Enphase and if no updates have been provided, we must default to still pending or no change, which does not fall in line with our internal goals for customer service at HEC.  We will continue to work with Enphase to improve this process by either requesting that they provide HEC with an update at a higher frequency or provide a direct number in which our customers *** speak directly to Enphase for an update. 
  Another area that we were able to focus on is scheduling.  We were able to track down your specific incident and it seems that the communication for your case was forwarded and placed in a queue awaiting the availability of the Light team.  This team specializes in tile roof cases that require a delicate touch that would minimize damage to your roof tiles. Their schedule can fill up quickly and are usually booked weeks in advance.  The wait time should have been communicated to you, and we will work to improve our communication moving forward.  Our schedulers will reach out to you to provide a date in which this team will be available to conduct your service.  
  We were also able to identify an issue within our call center that *** have contributed to some delays.  A line that was recently vacated in our customer support section was not correctly reassigned to a representative for action.  If that option was selected, the voicemail was sent to a vacant email.  We have since corrected that issue, and we will continue to monitor this process. 
  Thank you again for bringing this matter to our attention. The voice of the customer is an exceptionally valuable tool for our overall operation.  Your information allowed us to identify multiple areas in which we reviewed, evaluated and corrected to improve our overall customer experience.
  
  

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