West Babylon firm supports 'orphaned' Long Island solar energy customers

There’s a reason Gina Farese is known to her employees as the foster mother of the solar industry.

The chief executive of West Babylon-based Marcor Construction and its sister company, Marcor Solar, has taken on the monumental task of servicing upward of 3,000 solar rooftops on Long Island and the five boroughs whose original installers or panel makers have either left the market, closed down or filed for bankruptcy.

It’s a little-discussed sector of the solar industry on Long Island that has seen considerable turnover after rebate programs and other incentives have come and gone, leasing companies ran Tupperware-like solar sales parties, and the industry continues to see ups and downs that justify its local moniker, the solar coaster.

Marcor was in the news this week after EmPower Solar, one of Long Island’s largest installers, disclosed it was winding down operations just months after the federal government nixed a home solar tax credit that helped grow the Long Island market to the largest in the state. Marcor will provide a contact point for EmPower customers whose equipment, including solar panels, batteries, racks and inverters, is still covered under manufacturers’ warranties.

Farese said her company is stepping into the breach for EmPower customers whose products have existing warranties.

"We want customers to know that these agreements were strategically put in place so that they were not left high and dry and they are not orphaned," Farese said. Customers "have a home, and as the ‘foster mother of solar,’ I have open arms to help in any way, shape or form in what we’re capable of doing."

She stressed that Marcor did not acquire the assets of EmPower and workmanship warranties on installation work by EmPower have not been assumed by Marcor, unless otherwise discussed.

"We’re working to be very fair and flexible as much as we can be," she said. "If we can bill work through a warranty" because of a product defect, "we’ll bill that way." She said the company will work to "minimize payments by the homeowner" on systems that need workmanship-related repairs.

It’s not just EmPower’s customers who need that service. Over the past decade more than a dozen solar installers, leasing companies and manufacturers have exited the market, leaving a large number of customers in the lurch as systems age and installation problems become more evident. Farese put the figure of orphaned systems across Long Island in the double digit percentages of the roughly 100,000 systems in the Long Island Power Authority territory.

SUNation Solar Systems, a Ronkonkoma-based installer, has a 30-person team dedicated to "service anything that has been built," including residential and commercial, with "thousands of customers under monthly monitoring," said chief executive Scott Maskin. In all SUNation, which in December installed its 10,000th solar system, provides service for around 13,000 systems, Maskin said. 

The need is growing. 

In November national solar company PosiGen Solar filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas, citing loss of the federal tax credits. The company, with 40,000 customers, including some on Long Island, experienced a cash crunch last summer and shut down most operations after its lenders stopped funding ongoing operations.

The number of home solar systems left in the lurch is so substantial, Farese said, and Marcor Solar, which continues with its business of installing solar and battery systems, has "pivoted a large portion of our business service right now." The company has licenses for both roofing and solar work, she noted.

Marcor has 40 employees working in its solar division, including 15 recently hired from EmPower. "My team has to be on autopilot and they have to be able to run the deal start to finish," she said. "We do the design, review the engineer reports. We keep overhead tight to do the volume." Her team services between 30 and 50 solar rooftops a week. She has 13 master service agreements with entities including banks, panel manufacturers and agents for firms formerly in the business, tending to customers who are still paying off leases and loans on systems.

John Rocchetta, managing partner of GreenLogic Energy, a Southampton-based installer, has watched installers and suppliers come and go over more than two decades in business. He said that while most solar-panel installs are "set it and forget it," GreenLogic has a growing service division that is tending to keep systems operating to peak performance.

"There are so many systems out there from so many out-of-business contractors, and those systems are orphaned," said Rocchetta. Customers "don’t know if they’re working, and those systems need a checkup. They need a company do to checkups for animal damage, broken zip ties or bolts — there are items that need to be addressed."

Most of Marcor’s work, Farese said, involves systems that weren’t installed properly or should not have been installed on roofs. "The majority of the things we run into is poor installation," she said, "solar that was installed on a roof that it never should have been installed on," including with three layers of roof tiles. It can cost $20,000 to $30,000 to uninstall a solar system, redo the roof then reinstall it, she said.

Farese started her career on Wall Street as an investment banker but joined her dad’s construction company 20 years ago, starting at the bottom. "It was baptism by fire," she said. "I had to drive the truck, ride in the back of the truck, crash the truck — whatever I had to do ... I was able to teach myself this industry and be challenged constantly as a woman in a male dominated field."

The best advice she ever got: "Think like water." It means she developed an understanding of how water behaves on roofs and how to divert it, prevent leaks, keep her work tightly sealed. "It’s pretty easy to follow what water would do."

Farese, in addition to being a certified instructor who leads seminars for real estate agents and others on the intricacies of solar on homes, also is the chair of the Nassau County Home Improvement Advisory Board and a member of the Suffolk County Consumer Affairs board.

Despite the ups and downs of solar, she remains a strong believer in the industry.

"Good solar is good, but bad solar is bad," she said. "Customers just need to ask the right questions and make sure they’re getting the right system for their home. Solar is a necessity and we need clean energy. We need to find companies who can do this and do it right."

As for her own role, Farese said that in a perfect world, "there shouldn’t be a whole business for me to clean up solar all day long. But here I am."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.