New York-based solar developer Safari Energy sued Chint Power Systems in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in March of 2022 after alleged defects in Chint’s inverters resulted in three dozen fires at utility-scale solar projects in Georgia in less than a two-year period.
The Georgia projects were built by SolAmerica Energy Services and the power generated at the sites is sold to Georgia Power Company under a PPA.
Case No. 2:22-cv-1522 details the complaint for “negligence, breach of express warranty and breach of implied warranty of merchantability.”
The plaintiff Safari Energy said in the lawsuit that each of the inverter fires occurred suddenly and unexpectedly.
“As a result of the fires, each of the subject inverters was destroyed. Other property and equipment at Plaintiffs’ facilities were damaged by the fires as well, including but not limited to electrical and communications cables that were not supplied by Chint,” the lawsuit states.
The suit says despite the fact that Chint replaced certain units that have caught fire or otherwise failed, the company “has not repaired, replaced or refunded the purchase price of the multitude of other units that are defective but have not yet spontaneously combusted or otherwise failed.”
On June 24, 2022, the court referred the case to private mediation and ordered the resolution to occur by August 11, 2023.
