Class Action Alleges Atlantic Key Energy, Lumio HX Installed Faulty Solar Panels, Failed to Honor Roof Damage Warranties

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A proposed class action claims Lumio HX, Inc. and Atlantic Key Energy (AKE) routinely install non-functioning residential solar energy systems.

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The 46-page case out of Florida alleges that although Lumio and AKE represent in their customer sales agreements that they will install residential solar energy systems “according to state and manufacturer specifications” and with “skill ordinarily exercised by members of the profession,” the companies, instead, “systemically, repeatedly, and continually” fail to install systems that are operable and produce energy.

According to the complaint, the defendants also fail to honor warranties for roof damage and water infiltration caused by the installation of the systems, leaving consumers to pay out-of-pocket for expensive repairs, building materials and re-installation costs.

The plaintiff, a Florida resident, says her then-husband contracted with AKE—which merged with four other energy companies in 2021 to form Lumio—to install on her single-family home 48 solar panels that the companies said in their agreement would provide 100 percent of her home energy needs. 

However, save for a successful five-day test run in November 2021, the system failed to produce power for the first nine months after it was installed, the case says. Between when the system passed final inspection in January 2022 and when it was uninstalled in July 2023, it produced energy only about 44 percent of the time, the filing claims.

The woman claims she was forced to pay her electric utility provider thousands for energy that her solar energy system should have produced during the 234 days it was inoperable.

Per the complaint, the defendants’ agreement also stated that the system came with a 10-year warranty for any damage or water infiltration “at each roofing penetration made by AKE in connection with the installation of the system.” 

Although a contractor determined in April 2022 that the plaintiff’s roof had sustained water damage “due to lack of a water-tight seal around the solar panel anchors,” Lumio and AKE nevertheless required the plaintiff to pay $10,965 to have her roof repaired and a new solar energy system installed, the complaint alleges.

Per the case, the Better Business Bureau website is rife with reviews from AKE customers whose alleged experiences ring similar to the that of the plaintiff, with one consumer stating that it took the defendants “almost a full year to have the panels up and working.” Another commenter claimed that AKE’s installation of panels on their house “ruined [their] roof” and “water drips on [their] dining table” when it rains, the suit relays.

Other homeowners report that the defendants installed systems without acquiring a permit, that the systems repeatedly failed inspection, and that they were forced to pay their monthly loan payments for inoperable systems while also paying electric utility bills for energy, the lawsuit shares.

The complaint also notes that since 2021, several news outlets throughout Florida have published reports of AKE representatives soliciting homeowners door-to-door with allegedly false claims that they were offering their solar energy systems for “free” and “working for the government to help people go green.” 

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone within the United States who contracted with Lumio HX, Inc. or Atlantic Key Energy for the installation of solar energy systems and where the companies failed to install solar energy systems that are operable and produce energy and/or failed to honor warranties for roof damage and water infiltration caused by solar energy system installations.

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