Solar Energy World - Profile & Reviews

Solar Energy World managed this project professionally and well from start to finish. The build was faster and the whole project was lower-maintenance than I had really even hoped for. Timelines were accurate, the quality of consulting/advice was excellent, offline activities were managed without noise - such as working with the appropriate local entities for licenses, permissions, new meter, etc. - and the results look great. I received lower bids from other companies but SEW's organized approach gave me confidence that they would execute well, and I was not wrong. Great job!

SEW was a great solar installer to work with. They educated me every step of the way from initially signing the contract to installation. Daren Weatherby was the gentleman who I worked with and he was a great pleasure to work with. He is very knowledgeable and will continue to work with him now that I'm installed if I ever have any questions!

Jamie Ryan is very rude and unprofessional. He should not work in sales with that kind of attitude. He initially quoted me with Q cells system for $47K financed and I said that's too much. It took a couple of back and forth and he finally gave me $38K quote to be paid cash, not financed. He then gave me a spiel that it was certainly the best price he could give for the best system and I won't find any better deals. And that I only have until the end of that night to avail of that reduced price. I don't buy that. I don't like being rushed into buying. I went over the presentation he showed me earlier and found out that the average on the list scaled to my system size was paying $8K less. In fact, there were bigger systems on that list that's a whole lot cheaper. So I asked for the priced to be reduced based on the solar reviews average per watt suggestion. He didn't seem enthusiastic and so I brought up the price on his presentation. He has perfect reasons for everything. First, the low prices according to him were because it was power purchase agreement and then I pointed to a different slide and he reasoned that the prices were that low to generate leads. He then gave me a quote of $36.5K financed and that I have until the end of the day to avail that offer. He even said he'll give me price assurance certificate that if I find a system better than his, he'll match or beat that price. What upset me was when he told me that, that's the absolute best price he could do and he was not that desperate to obtain my business and just want to help me get solar. I was at work that day and he keeps calling and texting if I had my decision. I don't like how he puts pressure on the buyer. He is very disrespectful and impatient. If he's not desperate then why bother calling and texting me constantly? Also, I found a bank to fully finance the system so I can avail of the cash price but he still wanted to finance the FTC and grant amount. It was giving me red flags so time to entertain other installers. I didn't care even when he said that he would rescind the offer. I told him I dislike being pressured in getting the deal. I'm the buyer and I have the right to shop around, if he can wait until I have gotten all the information I needed then good. If not, nice talking to you. Still constant calls, text email throughout the week. After a week, finally picked out the panels we wanted. I texted him that we are going with another installer, he ask if I we could talk. Thats the least I could do for turning down an offer, so I called him. We talked and he said he has the REC alpha panels and could even give it to me at the same price as the Q cells quoted. He badmouthed the other companies and said how they were all lesser companies. I'm like if you had done this from the beginning we could have already signed the deal. Why go through all this trouble? He then said he was going to send me the contract for reviews an hour later through email as he had 1 appointment coming up. I called the other installer who had given me a lower quote to cancel but he proceeded to beat Jamie’s offer yet again. So I texted Jaime to inform him but he left me an angry voicemail and text stating that I was deceptive and a liar and how he never wants to do business with me ever. Maybe he forgot that he was a sales person, that he’d mention to match or beat other offers, or forgot that there was no contract yet or even be a professional and not be rude to customers. Either way, Good luck to you and I’m also glad that you don’t have my business. Maybe this job isn’t for you.

I worked with Daren Weatherby at Solar Energy World. The experience was completely awesome from start to finish. I now have a great system on my room that's cranking out power every day. I compared a TON of different companies, and SEW came out on top. I noted early on that Solar Energy World has top marks on BBB and https://www.guildquality.com/pro/solar-energy-world.

Daren proposed top-tier technology and his prices were the same as other companies. But what differentiated Daren from other sales people was: 1) Daren was *extremely* responsive, honest, and straightforward. I never once got the hard sell from him that I got from some of the other companies. 2) He helped me get the most panels on my roof (including getting a zoning variance) that none of the other companies would even consider. Thanks to Daren, I got about 10 more panels than any other company was willing to install.

My install process was great. My roof is VERY complicated with many pitches. The install team were extraordinarily professional, clean, and capable. They communicated with me very well throughout the process and made sure the external equipment on the side of my house was sited where I wanted it to be. The install looks great. No leaks! Cleaned up completely afterwards. And they finished early. My neighbors even noted the professionalism of the crew and how good the install looked.

I also found this review helpful as I thought about contracting with Daren/Solar Energy World: https://tiedyeseniorfi.com/2019/06/03/tdsf-power-plant-part-4-picking-a-solar-panel-installer/.

We were aware of Tesla/Solar City as investors and Vivint Solar because several of our neighbors used their services. Nevertheless we were very interested in information about Maryland area solar installers. Were EnergySage not recommended on the Maryland grant website we would not have learned about Solar Energy World’s exemplary performance and would probably taken our business to Tesla.

Daren did a great job helping us with our Solar. He explained everything in timely manner before,during and after installation. Post-install, he made sure that we had all the necessary documentation and information and helped us get set up on monitoring and SRECs. Great job all in all, highly recommend!

I cannot commend Solar Energy World enough for standing behind their products. We had an issue a few years after installation, and they went above and beyond to immediately address the issue and ensure we were satisfied. They stand behind their products and installations, even well after they are finished. Kudos to their entire team - they really care about both their business and their customers.

I can't say enough about my experience with Solar Energy World. Daren, my solar analyst, was incredibly knowledgeable, responsive, and showed a lot of integrity. That stood out compared to many other installers, whose approach was more like the typical car dealership rigamarole we all despise. The entire process was smooth. I really appreciated the care that was taken during the actual physical panel installation. The entire crew was extremely friendly and patient. Beyond just ensuring that the system worked, they took special care to achieve the best possible aesthetic outcome for external wiring.

Daren did a great job explaining the process, the return on investment and how Solar Energy World would help support the completion of the forms to get the various tax rebates and energy brokerage services. They answered all of my questions and made sure we understood why the distribution of panels was revised based on review by the county. The installation team came on schedule, noted it was about to rain, and worked with us to install the internal electrical systems that day, and finished the external work the following day. Every person on the team was both personable and professional- there are no conduits visible on the roof. Looking forward to completing the inspections and getting the system turned on.

They made the whole process easy and worked with me the entire way. It was a long process (almost 3 months) but their communication was great throughout. The installation was smooth and professional and looks better than most of my neighbor's systems (who went with other companies).

We've had solar panels installed for approximately 3 months, and I can say I couldn't be happier for every aspect of Solar Energy World. They were strait forward with their quoting. Daren Weatherby was easy to deal with, honest, and very professional. The installers showed up on time, were respectful, thorough, and friendly. The install was quick and seamless, looks good, and is performing as advertised. I am saving more than $200 per month on my electric bill. The solar panels are paying for themselves. Thank you Solar Energy World!

I am writing this review after 8 months of my solar installation. I choose them as it was highly recommended by my friend. I was impressed at the beginning of how they took care of the installation process with all approvals from townships and how the job got done professionally. They were able to get the installation job done on time with no glitches. Things went smooth until we hit the summer.

However, after 6 months in summer during my vacation, the solar edge inverter broke down and the app on phone did not have any notification mechanism. I was under the assumption that the grid gets monitored by the company but no one notified from SEW. I noticed this only after 2 weeks that I had no power generation the whole month of July. When I made my first complaint, a technical person informed that he will have 2 replace the chip of the inverter. I had to wait for 3 weeks and finally, the day came, the chip replacement did not work and they had replaced the whole inverter. Finally, I had it replaced after 4-5 weeks. They installed a newer version of Inverter.

During this whole process, I had to pay my PSEG bills of about $550(peak summer) and lost about 2 SRECs at about $450. When I reached out on this to SEW they did not compensate in any manner and blamed the inverter company and they had no ownership. This made me very upset about going back and forth on this issue with no result.

My other biggest problem is the Software App on the phone, which does not alert you on any failures and you need to monitor it regularly.

Prior to this, I made referrals to my friends on this company but this situation left me with low confidence now on this company.

My strong suggestion to this company is to step up on Service aspects and perform the App upgrades.

We had a great experience with Daren Weatherby at Solar Energy World. He was extremely knowledgable about all aspects of the process, was very responsive and easy to work with. Our whole process went very smoothly and we can highly recommend the whole SEW team. The employees we met all seemed to really like their company too, which says a lot!

Very positive experience with Solar Energy World. The whole process worked really well- from the first sales meeting with Daren through the install and the inspection/follow up. My system is now live and I'm very happy with the output. Great job all round- would definitely recommend to others.

I'd wanted solar for 40-some years, finally got the opportunity, and am thrilled. First of all, I was delighted with the knowledge, professionalism, prompt text responses, and polite manner of Daren, my sales rep, and everyone else who came to my home to do the site assessment and installation. I had solar panels installed on Feb. 19, 2019. I'm leaving feedback after receiving my first electricity utility (SMECO) bill for the first full month I've had solar energy. For 3/10-4/9, my bill was -$8.26 (a credit)! Last year, my SMECO bill for the same time period was $143.58. Subtracting my credit from Sunrun's PPA automatic-debit monthly bill of $94.92 (the 0% escalator plan) gives $86.66--an overall savings of $56.92 over last year's monthly bill. And that's just one month's savings! What's not to like? I am so happy to have gone solar, be helping the planet, and saving money, too. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

Salesman (Daren) was great - patient, explained everything to the level of detail I needed. Explained the process and everything flowed as predicted, only quicker. Price provided value for the money spent. Everyone I talked to in the company, from back office to on-site installers were very friendly, customer focused. It has been a pleasure working with Solar Energy World! If my math is correct (and how could that be?) I may have installed a couple more panels than I technically needed but only time will tell - they have great tools to determine the amount needed and these calculated more than I did, but on the upside, I am protected against the slow degradation that all panels experience, so I am OK with this - and who knows, they might be right in the long run. Generated 54KWh the first full day so I am excited. 34 300w panels.

I chose Solar Energy World because they were highly recommended to me by a few neighbors who had hired them, and because their initial proposal was realistic and achievable and the lowest cost. Every step of the entire process was great - a low-pressure and knowledgeable consultation, a realistic and well-priced estimate (that turned out to match the design exactly), all steps in the process happened on or before schedule, the installation was quick and easy and neat (with cleanup), county inspection and all the after-sale steps were taken care of quickly. They took care of everything and the array works well and has cut my electric bills at least in half. Good communication throughout and quick responses to my questions, requests and every single follow-up. They were very quick to replace the inverter unit when it didn't deliver properly. Highly recommended! My only regret is that I don't have more roof space to hire them to fill with another solar array.

We decided to go with another company, however they were very close to earning our business. Will was very good and very informative in his presentation.

We decided to go solar through the Montgomery Co-op of Solar United Neighbors since we got a better price and warranty. Solar Energy World was the company selected by the co-op to install our 9Kw/30 panels solar system. We had a very poor experience with the company and in particular with their solar analysts.

The two solar analysts who worked on our project showed a incredible lack of knowledge and customer care. Our first solar analyst, Mr. Jay Randell quoted us for a much bigger system (44 panels/13.2kW) that what we actually needed and he had a hard time following up with us. We had to ask the CEO of the company to work with another solar analyst. The second one, Mr. Bryan Hacker was better following up, but did not demonstrate the proper knowledge regarding roof penetrations and his way to answer our questions was really condescending to a point that we were afraid to ask. Even when we requested a second meeting to review the project prior to the installation, he claimed that he did not have time to meet with customers more than once and this is the way that the company works. It should be noted that Mr. Hacker is the Vice-president of sales of the company.
Regarding the roof penetrations, we needed a new roof before installing our solar panels, so I mentioned to Mr. Hacker that the roof company could mark the location of the trusses where the solar array is attached since I did not want extra new holes in our brand new roof. Mr. Hacker told us that was not needed since the company uses a method to exactly locate the trusses by measuring and chalking roof. The day of the installation we discovered that the company actually uses echo location to locate the rafters (i.e. they tap with a mallet or a hammer and roughly locate the trusses solely by the sound), as one can imagine with this method it is really easy to miss the trusses. As a result, we ended up with a bunch of holes in our new roof that they had to caulk. I recommend to CEO that his company should invest in proper electronic truss finders to avoid this problem. The company only measures and chalks roof trusses in situations where they cannot identify the trusses from above the roof with a mallet. We were really surprised that the Vice-president of sales was not aware of it. We could have avoided all those extra penetrations in our roof. Mr. Hacker also omitted to tell us that the company charges an extra fee to finance the system of roughly $2000 (apart from the money that goes to the loan interest) which would not have been charged if we paid cash. Finally and not least, he encouraged us to turn on our system before passing the county inspection. Thankfully we did not do it since the crew that installed our system told us that could cause the electric company to charge us twice (for the energy that we consume and the one that we produce) since we needed a new meter that knows the amount of electricity that we are producing.
The company never gave us a detailed report of the project (for instance the specifications of the solar panels and the inverter, where things will be located and how the condos would be run) prior to the installation, even when we asked for that information. After the installation I got the specs of the solar panels and the inverter after a direct request to the CEO of the company. Furthermore the company never gave us or even offered the manual of the inverter.
In contrast, the crew members that did the installation were very professional, they replied to all of my questions and they spent a good amount of time explaining things to us.

The CEO of the company is aware of these issues.

A solar system is quite a big investment and we believe that we deserved better customer care from Solar Energy World even when we are part of a co-op.

From the first encounter to present Solar Energy has been great to work with. The salesman was very knowledgeable and most helpful in my making a decision to go solar. I have recommended this company to more than one associate. I look forward to a continuing relationship.

This vendor operates differently than the others. They didn't post a quote, just a message that they were working on it. When the quote was not forthcoming, I sent them a reminder that I was interested. They responded and set an appointment. The salesman arrived and showed me a quote on his laptop. I asked him to provide me a quote via email or paper so that I could compare it with the others that I had received. He refused. He wanted me to sign with them on the spot. He asked me about the other vendors and wanted to see their quotes. I told him that I didn't think that was fair. Then, he gave me a spiel about how his company was the best and kind of trashed the others. I answered that I would not sign that day, but if he would give me the quote, I would review it alongside the others and make my decision. He asked me if we were done. I told him we were. So he left. He has yet to send me a quote or post it on the EnergySage website. I've seen some good reviews about them. It makes me wonder what they are hiding if they won't turn over their quote for comparison.

Installers mainly differ by the level of support they offer on installations -- it's less about the panels and hardware. So we chose someone local, experienced and with a great reputation. Solar Energy World excelled at making the entire process as frictionless as possible. They handled permits, site inspections and paperwork, and left me with very little to worry about. The installers were friendly and knowledgeable. We were very happy with the entire process, which took about 12 weeks, including the holidays.

Colin Gload and the Solar Energy World installers made going solar easy. The information was straightforward and easy to understand to make a decision. Then the installation team from design to installation was courteous, informative, polite, and did a top not job... it looks great... actually can hardly tell 39 panels are installed. It took a little longer than I wished but about on-time with what they projected. Can't wait to see the savings year over year. Colin was always responsive whenever we had a question or needed some information. He was awesome to work with and went above and beyond.

Dan and Georgana Finn

Everything from start to finish was great. There are many steps throughout the process, but Colin was great in being able to Move things along quickly. If you're thinking about going solar, def. call Colin and Solar Energy World!

Colin got back to me right away and thoughtfully answered my many questions. He was aggressive in trying to get us the best price and best components possible. We sent emails back and forth and had two phone conversations. I recommend him highly for his professionalism, knowledge and responsiveness.

Solar Energy World is a great company. Colin was very professional and did a good job assisting me in my process to go solar, I would recommend”

Overall we had a great experience with Solar Energy World. The sales and installation process went well. The inspection process did not go so smoothly.

Greatest thing I've done in years, the equipment is top of the line. installation was the most professional job I have seen in years. Great people to work with

We had a great experience with Solar Energy World - everything from their very knowledgeable Solar Consultant, Pat O'Brien, to their expert installers. They were fast, efficient, helpful, knowledgeable, and responsive to our needs and questions. The cleaned up afterward so that you couldn't tell they had been there - except for the awesome solar panels on our roof! They took care of the paperwork and made sure our system was running correctly. We are enjoying our FREE electricity - low monthly electric bills, and very nice SREC checks every few months that cover what we have spent on electricity! The best part is that we are helping the environment. Highly recommend Solar Energy World. They stand by their product and services. Very friendly, reliable team to work with.