Sullivan Solar Power reviews
• last updated FEB 26, 2026Loading map...
The Verdict
Sullivan doesn't pay its bills, and you'll be the one cleaning up the mess. We analyzed hundreds of reviews and found a pattern that should worry anyone signing a contract: at least 32 homeowners reported mechanics liens slapped on their homes because Sullivan failed to pay suppliers like Consolidated Electrical Distributors for the panels already installed on their roofs. One customer who paid cash upfront spent four months in limbo after CED filed a lien in February 2020, with Sullivan offering only vague assurances about management turnover. Another homeowner watched trenching crews destroy a retaining wall, trench four feet onto a neighbor's property without permission, and bury trash and irrigation flags in the backfill, all while the project manager went missing except to collect payment. After installation, 109 reviews mention post-sale support problems. The monitoring system Sullivan promises during the sales pitch often fails to catch outages: one owner discovered their inverter had been down for eight months, another for over 90 days, both times catching the problem themselves because Sullivan's monitoring never flagged it. When you call for help, voicemails disappear into what one reviewer called a "general catch-all blackhole inbox."
If you want panels installed and then radio silence when things break, Sullivan will deliver exactly that. But if you expect a company to pay its suppliers so you don't wake up to a lien on your house, or to actually monitor your system like they promise, keep looking.
Reviews That Shaped Our Verdict
Adam signed a contract in November 2019 for a residential solar system after friends and coworkers recommended Sullivan and a responsive sales rep, Tyler, who took time to design the right setup. He expected an install in February 2020 because the company had a year‑end rush — but then the project unraveled into months of silence and missed commitments. As February approached, calls and messages went unanswered until the Friday before the scheduled install, when his project manager finally surfaced and blamed city approvals for a delay. More weeks passed with no communication; an email later showed the plans were approved but there were now “crew scheduling” problems. By early March he learned the company had gone through personnel churn and new management, and his PM could offer no ETA. Then an electrician from Sullivan rang his doorbell at 7 a.m. unannounced to upgrade his service panel. The tech didn’t have the parts, and the company hadn’t even phoned Southern California Edison to schedule the required inspection and approval — meaning a roof install would have been premature. Adam found himself repeatedly calling the PM for a clear schedule and being ghosted; the PM kept a
SM experienced a January–March 2019 nightmare when Sullivan came to install solar panels and trench to upgrade the home’s electrical panel. What began as a routine residential upgrade quickly went off the rails because no one was overseeing the work on site: Project Manager Joshua Craig never showed up except to pick up a large payment, calls to his boss Jarrod Fisk went unanswered, and the crew proceeded without the expected supervision. The crew trenched not only on the homeowner’s side of a block retaining wall but dug four feet onto the neighbor’s property without permission, leaving open trenches on both sides for three weeks. They cut and buried the drip irrigation water line, destabilized the retaining wall, crushed plantings the homeowner had moved to clear a path, and dumped trench dirt and rocks across plants along the driveway. Concrete and sludge ran into a plant bed by the house and dried there, and mud and water were dumped into a lawn drain until it became a mud bog. At one spot they trenched beneath concrete and left an unfilled cavern; the homeowner discovered it when a foot sank into the bed. Inspections failed: SDG&E flagged the encroachment onto the neighbor
Dan bought a rooftop solar system and, over three years, kept running into the same problem: the promised “constant” performance monitoring failed to catch outages. He discovered the first lapse himself—his system hadn’t reported any data for eight months—then spoke with the owner, who admitted it was unacceptable and eventually got it fixed. In June 2018 he logged in again and found the system had stopped reporting for an extended stretch during peak summer generation. Sullivan told him they outsourced monitoring to SunPower and that SunPower would follow up; six weeks passed with no contact. When he pushed Sullivan again, manager Scott Barber promised to follow up but provided no regular updates despite a request that Sullivan check in with SunPower weekly. Since then he’s heard from Sullivan only once, and has spent hours on the phone with SunPower trying to get the issue resolved. He also reached out to the owner multiple times without response. Dan’s takeaway: Sullivan sells strong monitoring promises but leaves customers to chase problems when the service provider fails. Prospective buyers who care about real-time monitoring should confirm who will provide it, get written SLA
Platforms Monitored
Performance by Work Type
How We Got To Trust Score 68
No Red Flags
Unauthorized Activities
Passed screening
Misleading Claims
Passed screening
Background Check
Serving customers for 14 years
Among the longest-standing installers in the market.
BBB Rating: NR
Poor BBB standing. Significant complaints.
Natural Review Patterns
Reviews were posted naturally over time.
Contractor License
License information could not be confirmed.
What You Can Expect
Chris Theilen had a rooftop solar system installed in 2020, and last month he discovered the inverter had failed and the array stopped producing. He found the company’s website and Twitter still claiming as of 2/24/24 that customers were being taken care of and that systems would perform as promised, yet his online service form plus three follow-up attempts after 3/1/24 went unanswered. By 11/27/24 he still hadn’t heard back; the company continued posting on Twitter that it was in business but had comments turned off and ignored phone calls and form submissions. He remembers the original installation as excellent and even recommended them at the time, which is why this feels especially frustrating now that the business appears to have folded. He downgraded his score from what would have been five stars to two because of the misleading online statements and the lack of post-installation support. The concrete takeaway: when a critical component like an inverter fails and you can’t get a response (no contact since 3/1/24 in his case), don’t wait—reach out to another service provider for maintenance right away.
Christine had solar panels and an LG battery installed by Sullivan about five years ago and, at first, everything worked fine. About a year ago she discovered Sullivan stopped returning calls; after she posted a one-star review they finally followed up and she removed that post. Not long after, the LG battery began acting up again and she couldn’t get anyone at Sullivan to respond. When she saw a story on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune, she realized Sullivan had gone out of business. With the battery issue still unresolved, she called Baker Solar on a neighbor’s referral. Baker stepped in, got the LG battery working, and transferred her account into their fleet. She emphasizes that Baker can’t retroactively fix Sullivan account problems, but as a new provider they solved her immediate battery problem — the concrete outcome that mattered to her.
In August, Alexandra C. agreed to a bundled package that included a new roof from AVL Roofing, an update to the solar array Sullivan had installed eight years earlier (which had performed well), and a new pool thermal system. Because Sullivan had done a solid job years ago, she trusted the package would proceed smoothly — then discovered the company owner had pocketed the funds for the roof and the pool thermal. That discovery left AVL and the homeowners stuck covering the fallout, and turned a company she once relied on into a source of major disappointment. Now she’s forced to pull money from her child’s college savings — the child starts college next year — to pay AVL for work already completed, a painful and specific consequence that will stick with her long after the installation was supposed to be finished.