Woodland Hills, CA · November 2018 – September 2023 · LADWP / LADBS

The inverter was covered. The radio beside it was not.

A roof replaced and an array installed at the turn of 2019, then two inverter failures three years apart, both replaced under the manufacturer's warranty by the crew that put the system in. The second replacement uncovered the gap almost nobody is told about.

Written by the Cali Energy project team · California contractor license 1032379 · Updated September 2026

A manufacturer's inverter warranty covers the inverter. It does not automatically cover the communications hardware that carries your monitoring, which is a separate device with its own and usually much shorter term, commonly around five years. So a system can have its inverter replaced free and still lose its monitoring, because the part that talks to the internet has aged out on a different clock. Cali Energy performed both replacements on this Woodland Hills roof and went back for the communications device separately.

At a glance

Array

42 optimizers reporting

Inverter

SolarEdge string inverter, replaced twice under warranty

Monitoring

Zigbee communications module

Roof

Composition shingle, 52 squares, replaced with the installation

Incentive

LADWP Solar Incentive Program reservation

Battery

None

Years of service history

Five

Utility / AHJ

LADWP / LADBS

The story

This house came with a roof that had to go first. Fifty-two squares of composition shingle, stripped and replaced, before a module was set. The material list had gone out for fifty, the roof measured fifty-two, and the difference was covered the same day from matching stock held over from another job. The crew did not lose a day to it.

The array went on in the winter, and the first friction of the project was purely administrative.

At the time the utility ran a solar incentive that had to be reserved in advance and then claimed once the system was built. Reservations expire. Two expiry warnings came and went while the job was being finished. When the claim finally went in, it was rejected as incomplete, and the missing item turned out to be one photograph of the new solar meter. One photograph. It was collected, sent, and the incentive was approved five days later.

One thing to take from the first half of this: incentive money is paid against documentation, not against the existence of your system. The photographs the program asks for at the outset, module labels, inverter labels, a shot of each array with every module visible, are the claim. Take them when the equipment is in front of you, not months afterwards.

Then the system did what systems do, which is run quietly for a long time and then need something.

In the summer of 2020 the inverter failed. The manufacturer approved a warranty replacement, shipped the unit to our warehouse rather than to the homeowner, and our crew swapped it inside about a week. Monitoring was confirmed back online at the end of that month. That sequence is what a warranty is supposed to look like and there is nothing else to say about it.

In September 2023 the inverter failed again, this time with an internal fault the manufacturer identified itself. A second warranty replacement was approved and shipped, and the crew fitted it within about a week of the part arriving. The portal was updated the following day.

And the monitoring did not come back.

Here is the gap. On a system of this generation the monitoring does not travel over the house network directly from the inverter. It goes through a small radio module, in this case a Zigbee device, paired to a gateway. That module is a separate part. It has its own warranty term, commonly around five years, which is far shorter than the inverter's. So you can be handed a brand new inverter at no cost and still have a system that cannot report, because the component that does the reporting has aged out on a different clock and may not be covered at all.

Nobody explains this at the point of sale, and it is the single most useful thing to know. When your inverter is replaced under warranty, ask two questions before the crew leaves: is the communications module coming back up, and is that module itself still in warranty. The answers are frequently no and no.

The array itself never stopped. Generation does not depend on the radio, so the roof carried on working throughout, and the communications hardware was picked up as its own job the following week. The system that went on this Woodland Hills roof at the start of 2019 was signed off, had its incentive paid, has had two inverters fitted under warranty at no cost to the owner, and is still running.

Five years, two inverters, one roof, one crew, and a lesson about a part most owners have never heard of.

How it ran

This timeline covers one system over five years. The two inverter replacements were manufacturer warranty claims, not paid repairs.

What we did

• Stripped and replaced fifty-two squares of roof before the array went on, and covered a short material count from stock rather than delaying the crew (C-10).
• Carried the utility incentive reservation and the claim, and closed the rejection within five days once the missing photograph was identified.
• Handled the 2020 inverter failure as a manufacturer warranty claim, took delivery of the replacement and fitted it inside a week.
• Handled the 2023 failure the same way and updated the manufacturer's portal the day after the swap.
• Identified the communications module as a separate part on a shorter warranty term rather than treating it as part of the inverter claim.
• Arranged a separate visit for the monitoring hardware instead of leaving the owner with a system that generated but could not report.

System specifications

Is your project like this one?

• Your inverter has been replaced and your monitoring has not come back.
• You are being told an inverter is under warranty and want to know what else is.
• Your system is old enough that its communications hardware may have aged out.
• You are claiming a utility incentive and want to know what the claim actually needs.
• Your Woodland Hills roof is due for replacement at the same time as the array.

Cali Energy in Woodland Hills

Frequently asked questions

My inverter was replaced under warranty. Why is my monitoring still down?

Because on most systems the monitoring does not live in the inverter. A separate separate radio module carries the data to a gateway, and that module has to be recognized by the new inverter. If it is not, the array generates normally while reporting nothing. Ask whether the communications device came back up before the crew leaves, because that is a different fix from the one you just had.

Is the communications module covered by the inverter warranty?

Often not. It is a separate part with its own term, commonly around five years against the much longer period on an inverter. That means a system can reach a point where the expensive component is still covered and the cheap one is not. Ask for both terms in writing when you buy, because only one of them is usually quoted.

What does a utility incentive claim actually require?

Documentation, and specifically photographs. A reservation is made before the work and the claim is settled afterwards against evidence: labels on the modules and the inverter, each array photographed with every module visible, and the new meter. On this project the entire claim was held up by one missing photograph of a meter, and released five days after it was supplied.

Do incentive reservations expire?

Yes, and they give notice before they do. Two expiry warnings arrived on this project while the installation was being finished. If a reservation lapses the money is gone and there is no appeal to the fact that the system was built. Treat the reservation date as a real deadline on the schedule, not as paperwork.

Does Cali Energy handle warranty replacements on the Woodland Hills systems it installed?

Yes. Both inverter replacements on this roof were manufacturer warranty claims filed by Cali Energy, with the replacement units delivered to our own warehouse and fitted by our crew, three years apart. Filing the claim and doing the work are two different services and an owner needs both. California contractor license number 1032379.

What this would look like on your roof

Related

• Three years later, the inverter stopped reporting Chatsworth, CA · 8.19 kW DC · warranty replacement Solar
• Two years of nothing to do. Then the inverter went quiet Northridge, CA · SolarEdge HD-Wave · warranty case Solar
• The portal said no production. The system was running fine Woodland Hills, CA · 5.7 kW AC-CEC · seven years of service history Solar
• The array is fine. The inverter is what dates it Woodland Hills, CA · 9.6 kW AC-CEC · 39 days to permission to operate Solar

This timeline reflects this property and this permitting path. Updated September 2026.