Mississippi man details concerns with solar panels after Louisiana company he purchased from seems to have vanished

CARRIERE, Miss. (WVUE) — Looking to save money on his electric bill, a Mississippi man says he shelled out nearly $100,000 for new solar panels for his property. But he says the company hired to do the work seemingly has vanished.

Inside his 3,000 square-foot shop, Jim Dutton works meticulously restoring vintage cars. This is a labor of love. So, too, is his property in Carriere, Miss.

Last August, Dutton says his son expressed interest in keeping the property in the future.

“I said, ‘I need to make it as efficient as possible,’ for them to maintain it,” Dutton said. “I was called out of the blue. It was one of those calls from Tren Solar.”

Tren Solar is a Covington-based company that sells solar panels.

“They called and I said, ‘Hey, that’s a good idea.’ If it can cut the electricity bill down — and that’s anywhere from $400-$600 a month, that’s a good chunk of change,” Dutton said.

“I looked online and pulled up Tren Solar, and it looked like a legit business. And one of their partners, I guess they call it on the website — Panasonic — and they rated them in 2023 the best installer in the region.”

Within days, Dutton signed a contract with Tren Solar and signed up for a loan with Mosaic, a lending company, to help pay for the $99,000 job.

According to his contract, Tren Solar told Dutton he would need 47 solar panels on the roof of the shop and lines run under the driveway to connect the panels to Dutton’s main house. The plan was for the panels to provide energy to both the main house and the shop.

Dutton says Tren Solar told him that after the panels were installed, it would send an electrician to complete wiring of the project.

“They Installed the panels within three days,” Dutton said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is cool. They weren’t kidding, 4-8 weeks.’

“Then, it was radio silence.”

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Dutton says he called repeatedly and wondered where the electrician was.

He said that three months later, in December, “I had an electrician show up, finally. But, problem is, they didn’t have an approved plan, so they just wired it.”

According to Dutton, the utility company providing electricity to his home never approved Tren Solar’s plan for the solar panels. It’s standard practice for that to be done in Mississippi before any work begins. An email lays it out.

David Blackledge, a manager with Cooperative Energy, wrote in February, “I conducted an onsite visit to the Dutton residence. … To be clear, these two jobs should not have been installed by Tren Solar, because they didn’t make it past the initial utility review stage. … The installation method used has created multiple potential safety hazards.”

Dutton said, “One of the safety hazards is, because all the panels are on my shop and 20 some-odd feet from the house, they did not put a cutoff switch on the shop for those panels. So his concern was, if I had a fire in the shop and the firemen went up there to cut a hole in the roof, and they cut in the panel and it was hot, and there was no way to turn them off other than go to the other side of my property and hit the house switch.”

Dutton says he also discovered issues with the wiring done by the electrician hired by Tren Solar.

Blackledge’s email details that a Tren Solar representative messaged him, asking for permission to install the panels. But they already were installed. Blackledge said he couldn’t reach anyone at the company when he tried to follow up.

Because the installation was done incorrectly and posed safety hazards, according to Blackledge’s email, the panels can’t be activated.

According to its website, Tren Solar was located in Covington. When Fox 8 showed up there to speak with anyone with the company, we couldn’t find any Tren Solar signage on the door. Other people who work in the complex told us Tren Solar actually closed months ago.

It turns out Dutton isn’t the only one trying to track down Tren Solar.

“We’ve reached out many times through our processes. We’ve been unable to get them to respond,” said Michael Drummond, president of the Better Business Bureau of Greater New Orleans.

The BBB says it has received complaints about Tren Solar.

“All of the complaints have been (regarding) the lack of customer service communication that’s been happening,” Drummond said.

Tren Solar’s website recently was taken offline, though the company still is listed as active on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website.

Fox 8 tried to find the three people listed as the company’s co-owners or co-founders — Trey Clark, Sharon Urbina and Reyn Rogers — without success.

Fox 8 also called Mosaic, the lending company that still is sending Dutton bills. Despite repeated attempts, no one from Mosaic ever called back.

Mosaic also has Better Business Bureau complaints lodged against it. And there’s an alert on the BBB’s website letting consumers know that Attorneys General in a number of states are suing Mosaic for deceptive trade practices.

“A government action or a government warning is definitely a red flag to utilize with a business,” Drummond said.

Dutton said he feels as if he’s hit a brick wall. The last time he was able to reach anyone was in March, when Mosaic told him it was referring him to a third company that would work to fix the job Tren Solar started. But he says he still hasn’t heard from that company or heard back from Mosaic.

It’s been nine months since he signed up for what was supposed to be a 90-day job.

“I’m still out $100,000,” Dutton said. “I’ve had my fair share of bad contractors, but this is probably the worst. You’re not talking $10,000, you’re talking $100,000.

“I think it’s up to me to fight it.”

Dutton hired an attorney as he tries to figure out next steps.

The Louisiana Secretary of State’s website also lists Reyn Rogers — one of the registered officers of Tren Solar — as an officer for another solar panel company, Pelican Power Solar. That company was just registered with the state in February.

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