The Florida Startup Rescuing Homeowners Left Behind by Belly-up Solar Installers

At the end of 2024, Dream.Org launched the Make It Real photojournalism series to highlight the challenges and triumphs of those fighting for a more sustainable and equitable future. We're collaborating on a series of TriplePundit articles to share the stories of the people and communities on the frontlines of climate equity in the United States. 

Entrepreneur Luis Galarza has seen the shady side of solar. It’s what inspired him to co-found SoFlo Solar Advisors in South Florida. The purpose-based business isn’t about turning a quick buck selling solar systems. It’s focused on restoring systems for homeowners who were abandoned by installers that went out of business. 

SoFlo’s dedication to doing good earned Galarza a spot in the Dream.Org Make It Real campaign, which recognizes climate equity leaders by sharing their stories.

Botched installs and shady sales tactics

“There's a huge residential solar power crisis in South Florida,” Galarza told TriplePundit. Families are losing thousands of dollars a year because of botched installations or other issues with no one to help rescue them.

The crisis isn’t limited to Florida. It’s nationwide, and the cause boils down to two main issues: customers stuck with a useless warranty on installation work when solar installers go out of business and a lack of ethics among dealers, Galarza said. He listed a number of reasons why solar companies are going out of business, including mismanagement of cash flow and project finance and botched installations. But from the dealers’ end, the issue can be more sinister.

“There’s the solar bros and solar sales side where people, on top of getting bad installations, they’re getting these really bad deals,” Galarza said. For example, some finance lenders in the solar industry charge solar installers a dealer fee to be able to sell the lender’s loans or financing options to their customers, which is typically passed on to the customer. That fee can be as high as 30 percent, he said.

There is also often confusion, or even deception, around the tax credits available for solar systems in the United States.

“People don't understand that for you to get a tax credit, you have to pay taxes, and if you don't have a tax liability, there's nowhere for that tax credit to come for you,” Galarza said. “Salespeople understand this, and they don't care. They tell old people on fixed incomes, who have no way of recovering any type of tax credit, that they're going to get a 30 percent discount. It's criminal, if you ask me.”

From solar sales to solar rescue

As a former solar salesperson, Galarza said he witnessed the dark side of the industry firsthand. He and his business partner sold around 300 home solar systems, but only 200 were actually installed because the companies they worked with went out of business before all of the installations were carried out. All of the 200 systems that did get put up became a liability at one point or another, Galarza said. When customers called him a year or two later because something broke or malfunctioned, the company they had a warranty through was no longer around to fix it.

That experience motivated Galarza to do good instead. He became part of the solution by rescuing these orphaned systems — approximately 100 since May — and by working with green banks and community development finance institutions like the Solar and Energy Loan Fund (SELF), which offer solar loans without dealer fees.

The company handles maintenance, repairs, upgrades, and even installs new systems and backup batteries. Since SoFlo employees have no connection to sales commissions, contracts, or other incentives, they are able to provide unbiased advice to people weighing their solar options.

Galarza also helps homeowners who have to replace their roofs meet insurance requirements — removing and reinstalling the panels after the new roof is put on. Since banks will not finance this type of work and solar companies will not do it or charge exorbitant fees to do it, he offers payment plans for the labor involved. While that can raise complications on the business side, people are so happy to have help that all but one customer has paid accordingly, Galarza said.

Lack of investor interest limits solar rescue efforts

Galarza plans to use his feature in the Make it Real campaign in his efforts to raise funds for SoFlo Solar Advisors, but he also recognizes that simply doing the right thing isn’t necessarily the most effective motivation for attracting a lot of investors. 

“Climate tech investors and [venture capitalists], they care about returns, and they'd rather you get really rich and do good later than … go front and center and say, ‘Hey, I'm going to do good, but I'm not going to make any money at it,’” Galarza said.

Which might be why he’s not swimming in competition. There’s no shortage of orphaned systems that need rescuing. The work is there, but businesses aren’t lining up to do it.

For now, the market needs healing, Galarza said. “It needs these people doing things right, people rescuing existing systems,” he said. “When the market is so damaged reputationally, where everyone feels like there's something wrong with it, you need to go fix that before you can start pushing for putting new systems out there.”