POISONING THE WELL

Look south of the 49th parallel and you’ll see what happens when a genuinely good idea gets handed to a pack of financial predators.

The American residential solar industry, a sector that was supposed to free ordinary people from dependence on monopoly utilities, is in the middle of a historic collapse. SunPower, a company operating since 1985, filed for bankruptcy in August 2024 with over $2 billion in debt. Sunnova, one of the largest residential solar financiers in the country, followed in June 2025. Solar lender Mosaic went down the same month. In total, 2024 alone produced over 100 solar company bankruptcies. A number the industry had never seen in nearly two decades of tracking. Residential solar installations dropped 31%. Six consecutive quarters of year-over-year decline. Seventeen thousand layoffs in California alone.

How does an industry built on sunshine manage to implode that thoroughly?

You let the wrong people in the door. And now those people are knocking on ours.

I am not writing this from a position of detached concern. I am writing this because I am angry, and I think you should be too.

Everything I have, professionally, financially, reputationally, is in this industry. I didn’t get into solar to get rich. I got into it because I believe in something specific: that ordinary Albertans deserve the ability to generate their own power, reduce their own costs, and stop being entirely dependent on large corporations for one of the most basic necessities of modern life. In a world that keeps finding new ways to make the powerful more powerful and the rest of us more dependent, solar done right is a small but genuine act of defiance. I mean that without irony.

I have also, over the years, watched this industry attract people whose relationship to that vision begins and ends with how much money they can extract from it before moving on to the next thing. I’ve seen it up close, close enough that I once subcontracted for one of the worst offenders in this province, lasted a summer, and walked away from the money because what I was watching happen to customers was not something I could be part of.

So when I say these companies are poisoning the well, I am not speaking metaphorically. They are destroying customer trust in a technology that could genuinely improve people’s lives. They are handing ammunition to everyone who wants to dismiss solar as a scam. And they are threatening the futures of every honest installer in this province who has spent years building something real.

That is personal. It is supposed to be personal. If it weren’t personal, I wouldn’t bother writing this.

I also want to be transparent about one more thing before going any further: we use some of the same financing products I’m going to describe in this article. The difference, and it is the only difference that matters, is that we don’t hide what those products actually are. We show customers the real numbers. We show them what accessing that financing does to their return on investment and their payback window. We present it honestly, as a last resort for people who want to proceed but can’t pay cash or haven’t explored better options. And our first recommendation, every time, is to explore a HELOC or mortgage refinance before touching a solar-specific loan. The tool isn’t the problem. The lie is the problem.

The tool isn’t the problem. The lie is the problem.

Here’s the thing about solar energy that the sharks figured out early: most people can’t write a $25,000 cheque. So about 85% of American residential solar systems are financed. And where there’s financing, there are opportunities to hide a lot of nasty surprises in the fine print.

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau eventually got alarmed enough to issue a formal warning. What they found was systematic: lenders were building hidden fees directly into the loan principal, calling them ‘dealer fees’ or ‘program fees’ or ‘platform fees,’ whatever sounded most benign that week. These fees typically increased the loan cost by 30% or more above the actual cash price of the system. In some cases they exceeded 50%. The solar marketplace EnergySage found that dealer fees on the most popular loan products averaged 47% in the latter half of 2023.

“These fees are rarely shown to the customer. They increase the total loan amount and make the interest rate look artificially low.” (U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

Here’s how the trick works in plain language. A salesperson shows up at your door and offers financing at zero percent interest. That sounds incredible. It is. Because buried under that attractive rate is a massive upfront fee the install company paid to the lender to buy down the interest rate, and they quietly recovered that fee by inflating what they charged you for the system. You’re not getting a cheap loan. You’re getting an inflated system price and borrowing that inflated amount. The low interest rate is a magic trick, and your wallet is the one that disappears.

On a $30,000 system, a 30% dealer fee means you’re actually borrowing $39,000, with the lender pocketing $9,000 that appears nowhere in what you were shown. Pay the loan off early? Doesn’t matter. That fee was baked in from day one. It cannot be undone.

The result was predictable. Homeowners across America ended up locked into 20- and 25-year agreements for systems they overpaid for by tens of thousands of dollars, with monthly payments that never delivered the promised savings. When interest rates rose and the promises didn’t pan out, demand cratered. And when demand cratered, the companies that had built their entire model on financial engineering and high-pressure sales started falling like dominoes.

This is the cautionary tale. This is what happens when you let con artists into a legitimate industry. And it is absolutely, demonstrably, happening here.

The dealer fee trick didn’t stay in America. It made the trip north without any trouble at all.

In Alberta, we’re seeing solar companies advertise financing at 0% to 4.99% interest. Sounds reasonable. Sounds almost too good. And it is, because buried under that attractive rate is a dealer fee being quietly passed on to you through an inflated system price. The actual loan carries an interest rate of 13.99% or higher. The difference between that real rate and the advertised rate is covered by an upfront fee the installer pays to the lender, then recoups by charging you more for your system than it actually costs to build.

You see a low rate. You don’t see the markup underneath it. You might be paying $10,000 or $15,000 more for your system than you should, all so the company can advertise a number that makes your eyes light up.

As we said: we use some of these products too. The difference is we show you everything. We show you the cash price. We show you the financed price. We show you exactly what the financing costs you in real dollars over the life of the loan, and what it does to your payback period. We tell you plainly: if you can get a HELOC or refinance your mortgage at a lower rate, do that instead. Financing is a last resort for people who want solar but need a path to access it. It is not a selling feature. It is not magic. And it should never, ever be presented as something it isn’t.

Our standing instruction to every customer: if someone tells you that you won’t see a bill with solar, run. That is a lie, and anyone telling it is either ignorant or dishonest. You will almost certainly still pay some amount: admin fees from your utility, seasonal variation in production, system size limits that mean you draw some grid power in winter. An honest solar company tells you this upfront. A dishonest one promises a zero bill and then disappears after the cheque clears.

Let’s talk about Northern Pwr, also known as Fluent Solar, also known as Northern NRG. If the habit of operating under multiple names strikes you as a red flag, your instincts are working correctly.

This company has a documented pattern of targeting smaller communities and older, less financially sophisticated customers. They arrive with polished pitches and compelling charts about future electricity prices. And they sell systems at $5 to $8 per watt.

To understand why that number matters: a fair market price for a residential solar installation in Alberta is roughly $2,000 to $3,000 per kilowatt. Northern PWR has been documented charging $9,000 per kilowatt. A CBC News investigation found one Calgary customer who signed a contract for a 5.27 kilowatt, 13-panel system at just over $48,000. A comparable system through a reputable installer would cost $12,000 to $15,000.

That customer paid roughly three times the going rate. At that price, you will never (not in this lifetime, not with any reasonable assumptions about electricity prices or system performance) see the financial benefit that was promised. The math simply doesn’t work. The payback period becomes so long it’s practically fictional. This is not a mistake or a misunderstanding. This is extraction.

Service Alberta’s Consumer Investigation Unit received 27 complaints about Northern PWR in a single four-month window. The complaints included allegations of missing contract information, failure to process cancellations within required timelines, and, most damningly, misleading and deceiving consumers. In September 2024, Service Alberta issued a Director’s Order requiring Northern PWR to comply with the Consumer Protection Act under threat of fines and jail time.

A second Director’s Order followed, specifically ordering the company to cease charging illegal cancellation fees when customers tried to exercise their legal right to cancel, to stop misrepresenting consumer obligations, and to stop taking advantage of consumers who didn’t understand what they were signing.

Solar Alberta, the non-profit that promotes and advocates for responsible solar in this province, expelled Northern PWR from its membership.

We know this company personally, not from a distance, but from the inside. When they came to Alberta, they hired us as their installation subcontractor. They did the sales. We did the work. That meant we were on the ground, in people’s homes, installing systems we had no hand in selling, at prices we had nothing to do with setting. We worked on systems where the production couldn’t possibly justify the cost. We were the ones who had to look those customers in the eye. We lasted a summer. Then we walked away from the contract. There is no version of that work we could have done with a clean conscience, and no amount of money that changes that math.

A system priced at $8/watt doesn’t just fail to deliver promised savings. It is a financial anchor that will weigh down that household for the life of the loan.

Northern PWR’s own website, as of this writing, promises customers they can ‘say goodbye to unpredictable power bills’ and ‘start seeing savings right away.’ After multiple Director’s Orders and expulsion from the industry association, the pitch remains the same. Make of that what you will.

Solar brokers present themselves as consumer champions, positioning themselves as neutral intermediaries who shop the market on your behalf and bring you the three best quotes. In theory, this is a great idea. In practice, some of them are running a different game entirely.

Here’s how a bad broker operates. They approach installers and establish ‘preferred’ relationships that come with financial arrangements: kickbacks, referral fees, preferred margins. The installer who pays the most becomes the ‘winner’ of the three-quote process. The other two quotes are props, sometimes inflated on purpose to make the preferred quote look competitive. The customer believes they’re getting independent advice. They’re getting a curated result.

These brokers victimize both consumers and honest installers. Consumers because they believe they’re getting a fair market comparison and aren’t. Installers because legitimate companies that compete on actual quality and honest pricing get undercut by a process that was rigged before it started.

Not all brokers operate this way, and we want to be clear about that. We know one we trust without reservation (a company called Glean) that operates with genuine transparency and actually does what a broker should do. Honest brokers exist and they provide real value. But the bad ones are using the credibility of the good ones as cover, and that needs to be said plainly.

If you’re using a broker, ask them directly: do you have financial relationships with any of the installers you’re recommending? Do you receive referral fees or commissions from them? A trustworthy broker answers those questions without flinching.

Here’s what keeps me up at night, and it isn’t the money.

Solar energy, done honestly, is one of the most powerful tools available to ordinary Albertans to claw back some control in an economy that has spent the last generation moving wealth steadily away from people like us and toward institutions that don’t know our names and don’t care to learn them. Every kilowatt-hour you generate yourself is a kilowatt-hour some utility doesn’t get to charge you for. Energy independence is real independence. I mean that.

When companies like Northern PWR go into rural Alberta and sell a retired farmer a $48,000 system that should cost $14,000, they don’t just hurt that farmer. They make solar itself radioactive. They hand ammunition to every critic who wants to dismiss clean energy as a racket. They give the whole industry the taint of the con, and that taint does not wash off easily.

The American collapse isn’t just a financial story. It’s a story about what happens when a technology with genuine promise gets colonized by people whose only interest is extraction. And extraction, we should note, is something Albertans have had quite enough of from quite enough directions already.

I got into this work because I believe fiercely in people’s right to provide for themselves, to not be dependent on corporations and institutions for the basics of their lives. I am not interested in replacing one form of dependence with another. What these predators are doing is exactly that: they are trapping people in financial arrangements they can’t escape, with technology they overpaid for, while collecting a cheque and moving on.

That is not what solar is supposed to be. It is not what I got into this business to do. And I am not going to stay quiet about it.

We’re not here just to light things on fire and walk away. Here’s what you should expect from a legitimate solar installation company in Alberta:

• A fair price per watt. In today’s Alberta market, a reasonable residential system runs $2.00 to $3.25 per watt installed depending on system complexity, equipment quality, and location. Anything significantly above that warrants hard questions.

• Honest savings projections. A good solar company runs your actual numbers: real consumption, real roof, real location. They give you a realistic payback period. If the payback period sounds suspiciously short or the savings sound unrealistically large, they probably are.

• Transparent financing. The cash price and the financed price should be disclosed separately, with all fees itemized. You should know exactly what you’re borrowing, at exactly what rate, and what accessing that financing actually costs you over time. If a company won’t give you a straight cash price, walk.

• Realistic bill expectations. You will almost certainly still see some utility charges: admin fees, seasonal shortfalls, grid connection costs. Any company promising a zero bill is either naive or lying. The goal is dramatic reduction, not the elimination of physics.

• Better financing alternatives first. Before you touch a solar-specific loan, explore a HELOC or mortgage refinance. In most cases, the rate will be better, the fee structure will be transparent, and you’ll come out ahead. An honest company tells you this. A dishonest one steers you toward the product that makes them the most money.

• References and longevity. A reputable installer has a track record in your province, can give you real references, and holds good standing with industry associations. Solar Alberta membership isn’t a guarantee of perfection, but expulsion from it is a meaningful red flag.

• No high-pressure tactics. You do not need to sign tonight. You do not need to act before the program expires. Any salesperson who tells you otherwise is using a technique specifically designed to prevent you from thinking clearly. That technique works. Don’t let it.

Solar is not a scam. Solar is good. I believe that with the same conviction I bring to everything else I do, and I’ve staked my professional life on it being true.

But solar, like any significant financial decision, can be turned into a vehicle for theft if you let the wrong people near it. And right now, some of the wrong people are very much present in this market, with polished websites, plausible pitches, and a talent for finding customers who haven’t yet learned to ask the hard questions.

The American solar industry didn’t collapse because solar is bad. It collapsed because too many companies built their businesses on financial engineering, inflated promises, and the assumption that customers wouldn’t look too closely at the math. When customers did look, when interest rates rose and payback periods became obviously fictional and bills didn’t disappear the way the salesperson swore they would, the whole house of cards came down.

I don’t want that here. Alberta doesn’t need another industry that promises independence and delivers debt. We have enough of those already.

Get multiple quotes. Ask for the cash price, separately from the financed price. Ask your broker if they’re getting paid by the installer. Check the company’s record with Service Alberta and Solar Alberta. Explore a HELOC before you sign a solar loan. And if someone shows up at your door promising you a zero bill and a life-changing financial miracle, remember what we tell every one of our customers:

“If someone tells you that you won’t see a bill, run.”

That advice is free. The kind of solar installation that actually delivers on its promise costs a fair price, comes with honest projections, and is sold by a company that will still be answering the phone in five years. Those companies exist. Find one.

SOURCES & DOCUMENTATION

U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Issue Spotlight: Solar Financing (2024) | U.S. CFPB Consumer Advisory on Solar Loans (August 2024) | U.S. Treasury Department Consumer Solar Awareness Page | PV Magazine USA: U.S. Residential Solar Downturn (2024-2025) | Canary Media: Sunnova and Mosaic Bankruptcy Reporting (June 2025) | SolarInsure: Complete List of Solar Bankruptcies | Service Alberta Director’s Orders: Fluent Solar Ltd. & Northern Pwr Ltd. (2024 & 2025, Open Government Alberta) | CBC News: Door-to-Door Solar Sales Investigation (August 2025) | Solar Alberta: Industry Complaints and Membership Actions | Canadian Renewable Energy Association: Consumer Protection Commentary | EnergySage: Residential Solar Pricing Data