By Robert Bradley Jr.

“It is hard to square Meghan Nutting’s parting comments with good, only bad. Her company failed everyone but a few employees, and no one more than founder/CEO John Berger. Her industry has failed its owners and customers too. Her solar journey was a mistake, a mirage, enabled by government.”

Rooftop solar will go down as one of the biggest consumer busts in energy history–and it is just getting started. Sunnova Energy International, with 441,000 rooftop customers, already the subject of mass complaints and lawsuits, can no longer perform on their long-term contracts. So much for promises (still on their website):

25 Years of Protection

Enjoy peace of mind knowing your home solar system and battery are covered by Sunnova Protect®, featuring maintenance, monitoring, repairs, and replacements for 25 years. * Zero out-of pocket costs for repairs, replacements, and labor for ALL system components, even if outside the manufacturer’s limited warranty * Roof penetration warranty *Energy guarantee

The problem is industry-wide as explained by Cesar Barbosa who issued this industry-wide warning:

A bold prediction no one wants to hear: Half of all commercial solar systems installed before 2016 will be underperforming or non-operational by 2030…. [It is] a silent crisis unfolding on rooftops across America—a crisis I’ve been tackling firsthand since 2012, traveling the country with SunPower to address some of the industry’s most pressing system failures.

Across the country, tens of thousands of rooftop solar systems—once hailed as the clean energy revolution—are quietly decaying. Not because the technology failed, but because the industry did. We rushed to install. We cut corners. We promised 25 years of performance… and delivered systems that can’t make it past 10. [1]

Back to Sunnova, the busted rooftop solar leader. I have traced the fall of Sunnova Energy and founder/CEO John Berger with these prior posts:

I now add another one for the historical record. This is the swan song of solar crony Meghan Nutting, EVP of government and regulatory affairs at Sunnova Energy International. “Today is my last day at Sunnova Energy,” she begins.

It’s been just over a decade since I started in May 2015 and in that time, the company grew from a few thousand customers to nearly half a million [now stranded customers]. I am the only person to have held my job at the company and I’m proud of the policy work I was able to do as part of the Sunnova team….

She continues:

A lot has happened, both professionally and personally, over the past ten years. In 2019, I had the honor of standing on the balcony while our CEO rang the bell at the NYSE the day Sunnova went public. Since starting at the company, I have spoken at more than 50 conferences and events, done numerous media interviews and podcasts, and traveled A LOT because democracy (and strong solar policy) is not a spectator sport. I founded and led Sunnova’s Women’s Leadership Network where we brought women in the company together for speakers, water cooler chats and happy hours. I put together a thread on X about why solar costs are what they are and the pressures installers face when building systems: https://lnkd.in/gu69z3S3. And I had an unexpected (and undesired) cameo on Fox News.

Incredible Projects?

I was fortunate to be able to work on incredible projects like DOE’s Puerto Rico Resilience Fund, Sunnova’s $3 billion loan guarantee through the Loan Programs Office, our groundbreaking microgrid application in CA, a petition to the FTC asking them to investigate electricity monopoly abuses of their power, an op-ed on why ratepayers shouldn’t have to pay for utility trade association or lobbyist spending, and a piece by Last Week Tonight on utilities trying to limit rooftop solar adoption: https://lnkd.in/g8WvXMMt

I was part of a brilliant team that fought for the industry in the CA NEM 3.0 battle and part of another amazing team that worked with the American Enterprise Institute on a paper about Innovating Future Power Systems [with faux Lynne Kiesling]. I also worked on [virtual power plant] policies and rollout across the country, brought up the concept of a SolarAPP for interconnection every chance I could, worked through details of consumer protection proposals in numerous states, talked about IRA guidance a lot, and testified at the International Trade Commission as part of my work on trade issues.

I was named one of the Denver Business Journal’s top women in energy for 2018 and one of the DBJ’s top women in business in 2021. I was also a 2021 C3E award winner from the U.S. Department of Energy in the business category. I participated in a few leadership programs such as Impact Denver, Leadership Arts and was part of the 2023 NREL Energy Execs class. I also ran unsuccessfully for the Colorado House of Representatives in 2017-18 (a huge thanks to anyone who donated to my campaign).

She added in a comment:

I had the honor of serving on the boards or advisory boards of Women in Solar Energy, the Energy Choice Coalition, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the PR Solar Energy and Storage Association, InvestHER, the Institute for Regulatory Law and Economics, GridFWD, my niece’s school PTA (which I also co-founded), the Colorado Young Democrats and as Captain of my House District.

I got to work closely with incredible organizations like Solar United Neighbors, the Solar Rights Alliance, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, the Solar Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity as well as some really incredible state solar trade associations and SEIA….

And in another comment:

I’ll be back. Because I very deeply believe in the value of solar. I recognize that we need unheard of amounts of energy to power our world and that rooftop solar can be built quickly, affordably and at scale and with minimal environmental impact. I want to make sure that consumers have the right to produce their own energy and that energy markets aren’t entirely controlled by monopolies who care only about their shareholder interests. I want to ensure our system operates efficiently using consumer-sited resources and demand side management so that we can keep rates affordable. I want to make sure consumers can participate in energy markets and are fairly compensated for their contributions.

Final Comment

Nice but naive words about a huge failure–a debacle–that will still play out. And chances are, with a major rollback of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Investment Tax Credit, the Production Tax Credit, and blockage of the ‘gold bars thrown off the Titanic,’ there will be no industry to return to. Just wind down.

It is hard to square Meghan Nutting’s parting comments with good, only bad. Her company failed everyone but a few employees, and no one more than founder/CEO John Berger. Her industry has failed its owners and customers too. Maybe she should join Berger on the witness stand should lawsuits and Congressional investigations ensue.

Will she realize someday that her solar journey was a mistake, a mirage, enabled by government at the expense of taxpayers and the federal debt? Maybe, but not today.

————————-

[1] Cesar Barbosa added: “Inverters are dying—many are already out of warranty, with no replacements available…. Wiring and electrical infrastructure that was never designed for 25+ years of exposure.”

Install quality? Forget it—an army of barely trained crews built the boom, and now we’re paying the price. Maintenance? There was no plan. Just a contract, a handshake, and a hope it would all work out.

This is not just an engineering issue—it’s a financial one. Underperforming assets are generating less revenue than forecasted, while increasing the risk of electrical faults, fire hazards, and insurance claims.

“It is hard to square Meghan Nutting’s parting comments with good, only bad. Her company failed everyone but a few employees, and no one more than founder/CEO John Berger. Her industry has failed its owners and customers too. Her solar journey was a mistake, a mirage, enabled by government.”

Rooftop solar will go down as one of the biggest consumer busts in energy history–and it is just getting started. Sunnova Energy International, with 441,000 rooftop customers, already the subject of mass complaints and lawsuits, can no longer perform on their long-term contracts. So much for promises (still on their website):

25 Years of Protection

Enjoy peace of mind knowing your home solar system and battery are covered by Sunnova Protect®, featuring maintenance, monitoring, repairs, and replacements for 25 years. * Zero out-of pocket costs for repairs, replacements, and labor for ALL system components, even if outside the manufacturer’s limited warranty * Roof penetration warranty *Energy guarantee

The problem is industry-wide as explained by Cesar Barbosa who issued this industry-wide warning:

A bold prediction no one wants to hear: Half of all commercial solar systems installed before 2016 will be underperforming or non-operational by 2030…. [It is] a silent crisis unfolding on rooftops across America—a crisis I’ve been tackling firsthand since 2012, traveling the country with SunPower to address some of the industry’s most pressing system failures.

Across the country, tens of thousands of rooftop solar systems—once hailed as the clean energy revolution—are quietly decaying. Not because the technology failed, but because the industry did. We rushed to install. We cut corners. We promised 25 years of performance… and delivered systems that can’t make it past 10. [1]

Back to Sunnova, the busted rooftop solar leader. I have traced the fall of Sunnova Energy and founder/CEO John Berger with these prior posts:

I now add another one for the historical record. This is the swan song of solar crony Meghan Nutting, EVP of government and regulatory affairs at Sunnova Energy International. “Today is my last day at Sunnova Energy,” she begins.

It’s been just over a decade since I started in May 2015 and in that time, the company grew from a few thousand customers to nearly half a million [now stranded customers]. I am the only person to have held my job at the company and I’m proud of the policy work I was able to do as part of the Sunnova team….

She continues:

A lot has happened, both professionally and personally, over the past ten years. In 2019, I had the honor of standing on the balcony while our CEO rang the bell at the NYSE the day Sunnova went public. Since starting at the company, I have spoken at more than 50 conferences and events, done numerous media interviews and podcasts, and traveled A LOT because democracy (and strong solar policy) is not a spectator sport. I founded and led Sunnova’s Women’s Leadership Network where we brought women in the company together for speakers, water cooler chats and happy hours. I put together a thread on X about why solar costs are what they are and the pressures installers face when building systems: https://lnkd.in/gu69z3S3. And I had an unexpected (and undesired) cameo on Fox News.

Incredible Projects?

I was fortunate to be able to work on incredible projects like DOE’s Puerto Rico Resilience Fund, Sunnova’s $3 billion loan guarantee through the Loan Programs Office, our groundbreaking microgrid application in CA, a petition to the FTC asking them to investigate electricity monopoly abuses of their power, an op-ed on why ratepayers shouldn’t have to pay for utility trade association or lobbyist spending, and a piece by Last Week Tonight on utilities trying to limit rooftop solar adoption: https://lnkd.in/g8WvXMMt

I was part of a brilliant team that fought for the industry in the CA NEM 3.0 battle and part of another amazing team that worked with the American Enterprise Institute on a paper about Innovating Future Power Systems [with faux Lynne Kiesling]. I also worked on [virtual power plant] policies and rollout across the country, brought up the concept of a SolarAPP for interconnection every chance I could, worked through details of consumer protection proposals in numerous states, talked about IRA guidance a lot, and testified at the International Trade Commission as part of my work on trade issues.

I was named one of the Denver Business Journal’s top women in energy for 2018 and one of the DBJ’s top women in business in 2021. I was also a 2021 C3E award winner from the U.S. Department of Energy in the business category. I participated in a few leadership programs such as Impact Denver, Leadership Arts and was part of the 2023 NREL Energy Execs class. I also ran unsuccessfully for the Colorado House of Representatives in 2017-18 (a huge thanks to anyone who donated to my campaign).

She added in a comment:

I had the honor of serving on the boards or advisory boards of Women in Solar Energy, the Energy Choice Coalition, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the PR Solar Energy and Storage Association, InvestHER, the Institute for Regulatory Law and Economics, GridFWD, my niece’s school PTA (which I also co-founded), the Colorado Young Democrats and as Captain of my House District.

I got to work closely with incredible organizations like Solar United Neighbors, the Solar Rights Alliance, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, the Solar Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity as well as some really incredible state solar trade associations and SEIA….

And in another comment:

I’ll be back. Because I very deeply believe in the value of solar. I recognize that we need unheard of amounts of energy to power our world and that rooftop solar can be built quickly, affordably and at scale and with minimal environmental impact. I want to make sure that consumers have the right to produce their own energy and that energy markets aren’t entirely controlled by monopolies who care only about their shareholder interests. I want to ensure our system operates efficiently using consumer-sited resources and demand side management so that we can keep rates affordable. I want to make sure consumers can participate in energy markets and are fairly compensated for their contributions.

Final Comment

Nice but naive words about a huge failure–a debacle–that will still play out. And chances are, with a major rollback of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Investment Tax Credit, the Production Tax Credit, and blockage of the ‘gold bars thrown off the Titanic,’ there will be no industry to return to. Just wind down.

It is hard to square Meghan Nutting’s parting comments with good, only bad. Her company failed everyone but a few employees, and no one more than founder/CEO John Berger. Her industry has failed its owners and customers too. Maybe she should join Berger on the witness stand should lawsuits and Congressional investigations ensue.

Will she realize someday that her solar journey was a mistake, a mirage, enabled by government at the expense of taxpayers and the federal debt? Maybe, but not today.

————————-

[1] Cesar Barbosa added: “Inverters are dying—many are already out of warranty, with no replacements available…. Wiring and electrical infrastructure that was never designed for 25+ years of exposure.”

Install quality? Forget it—an army of barely trained crews built the boom, and now we’re paying the price. Maintenance? There was no plan. Just a contract, a handshake, and a hope it would all work out.

This is not just an engineering issue—it’s a financial one. Underperforming assets are generating less revenue than forecasted, while increasing the risk of electrical faults, fire hazards, and insurance claims.

From Tilak’s Substack

.
Tilak Doshi

A tale of Guardianista Land…where everyone was equal. (But, some more equal than others) https://camera-uk.org/2011/01/24/a-tale-of-guardianista-land-where-everyone-was-equal-but-some-more-equal-than-others/

Once again, Fiona Harvey, the Guardian’s Environment Editor-cum-resident climate evangelist, has taken to the pages of her paper to deliver a sermon on the supposed settled science of climate change. In her latest missive, she trumpets the pronouncements of André Corrêa do Lago, Brazil’s diplomat who will preside over the United Nations climate summit (30th Conference of the Parties or COP30) in November this year.

Ms Harvey claims that “climate denialism” has been defeated by the weight of “scientific consensus” and now the deniers are resorting to the argument that climate policies cannot shift the global economy to a low-carbon future. Thus, according to Corrêa do Lago: “It is not possible to have [scientific] denialism at this stage, after everything that has happened in recent years. So there is a migration from scientific denial to a denial that economic measures against climate change can be good for the economy and for people.”

Ms Harvey, steeped in the familiar dogma of climate alarmism, reels off the usual tropes: “As the climate crisis has gathered pace, temperatures have risen and the effects of extreme weather have become more obvious, scientists have been able to draw ever more clearly the links between greenhouse gas emissions and our impacts on the planet.”

The new twist to the climate alarmist narrative pushed by her in her interview of Corrêa do Lago is that we are now witnessing the last gasp of a defeated ideology of climate denialism. The denial of scientific consensus in now replaced by the denial of enlightened climate policies which would bring the avoidance of impending environmental catastrophe while promoting resilient economic growth. In his exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Brazilian diplomat asserts that this “economic denial” could be just as dangerous and cause as much delay as repeated attempts to deny climate science in previous years.

But the Science is Not Settled…

In Ms Harvey’s universe – occupied by the likes of Corrêa do Lago, Greenpeace and the UK’s very own ‘Mad Ed’, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero – the science is settled, the energy transition is an imperative and decarbonisation will not only save the planet from an impending environmental catastrophe but also bring about economic growth and prosperity. Harvey’s article hinges on the tired assertion that the science of climate change is settled, with a ‘97% consensus’ among scientists that human activity drives catastrophic global warming. This figure, derived from John Cook’s 2013 study, has been debunked repeatedly for its methodological flaws — most notably by scholars like David Legates, who found that only a tiny fraction of the studied papers explicitly endorsed the catastrophic narrative.

William Happer, a Princeton physicist, has demonstrated that CO₂’s warming effect is logarithmic, diminishing with increased concentration, and that current levels are far from catastrophic. Judith Curry, a former Georgia Tech climatologist, has meticulously documented the uncertainties in climate models, particularly their overreliance on assumptions about positive feedback loops. Nobel laureate John Clauser has called the climate crisis narrative “pseudoscience”, arguing that it ignores fundamental principles of physics. These are not fringe voices but eminent scientists whose peer-reviewed work is grounded in observable evidence, not ideological fervour.

The ‘settled science’ that Ms Harvey and Mr Corrêa do Lago take for granted is an oxymoron, as Michael Crichton reminded his audience at the California Institute of Technology in 2003: “There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”

But perhaps the most careful recent look at ‘settled science’ has been by Steve Koonin in his book Unsettled, where he marshals scientific facts supported by hard data and the peer-reviewed literature that stand against the reigning climate change narrative. He finds that the rate of sea-level rise has not accelerated; humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century; tornado frequency and severity are not trending up; Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago; the number and severity of droughts are not rising over time; the extent of global fires has been trending significantly downwards; global crop yields are rising, not falling; the net economic impact of human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of this century even if global average temperatures rise by 3°C, which is double the Paris Agreement goal.

…And Climate Policies have brought Widespread Misery and Pushback

Corrêa do Lago, we are informed, wants to spur a new global effort to persuade people that remodelling the economy away from a reliance on fossil fuels and towards a clean energy future will reap benefits for all people. “It’s the turn of those who believe in the fight against climate change to show and to prove that fighting climate change is possible, and that it can come with economic advantages and with a better quality of life.”

In preparing for the gabfests that the annual UN climate summits have become known for, Mr. Corrêa do Lago blames the deniers for the “concerted attack on the idea that the economy can be reorganised to fight the [climate] crisis”. In attempting to gather 196 countries to pursue the kind of climate policies that support the globalist agenda touted by the likes of the Guardian, Corrêa do Lago lays blame on “the new populism” that is trying to show climate policies of decarbonisation do not work.

Source

Among these “new populists”, of course, President Donald Trump looms large, calling the UN-touted global climate policies as the “Green New Scam”, pulling the US out of the 2015 Paris Agreement and putting the final nail in the coffin of the global climate agenda. Ms Harvey rues what she calls the “geopolitical headwinds” facing COP30, with the Trump administration having “emboldened countries that wish to derail progress”. Among what she calls the “possible mischief makers”, she lists “Saudi Arabia, Russia, Argentina, Venezuela and a host of other countries, including petrostates and populist-leaning governments”.

Previous UN climate jamborees have seen the promises of Net Zero collide with the hard realities of rapidly expanding energy demand especially in the developing world. For instance, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, the president of the COP28 climate summit, said pointedly in response to questions from a UN special envoy for climate change: “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5°C.” He further said off-camera in an interview that: “You’re asking for a phase-out of fossil fuels… Please, help me, show me for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

Neither Ms Harvey nor Mr Corrêa do Lago seems to be aware, or willing to admit an awareness, of the widespread reaction in Western Europe against the depredations of punitive climate policies that have escalated the cost-of-living crisis here. The rise of conservative-populist parties in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, France, Germany and the UK is at least in part explained by the sheer economic immiseration among working and middle class households caused by high energy and electricity prices. The modern Western barbarism of an enforced energy starvation diet is being exposed and increasingly challenged not only in the US under the Trumpian counter-revolution but increasingly in other parts of the world as well, from Argentina to New Zealand.

The recent blackouts in the Iberian Peninsula further expose the folly of over-reliance on renewables. Spain and Portugal suffered massive blackouts – Western Europe’s worst in post-war history – due to insufficient grid inertia. This was a direct result of prioritising wind and solar over dispatchable sources like coal, gas and hydropower. As reported by the Telegraph, the Spanish socialist Government was probing how far it could push reliance on renewables in preparation for the country’s rushed phase-out of nuclear reactors from 2027.

To add further to the folly of the ‘energy transition’ proponents such as Ms Harvey and Mr Corrêa do Lago, the recent IEA report underscores the surging electricity demand from AI data centres, projecting a doubling of global power needs by 2030. Europe’s climate policies, which reduce reliable dispatchable power, are spectacularly ill-timed, leaving the continent unprepared for this technological shift.

The Guardian Preaching to the Choir

Fiona Harvey’s article is not journalism but propaganda, a paean to the climate cult that mistakes consensus for truth. COP30, like its predecessors over the past three decades, will likely produce more platitudes than actionable results. The real desperation lies not with sceptics but with those who cling to a narrative unsupported by physics, economics or data. The climate crisis is a construct of ideology, not science. It’s time for the Guardian to abandon its dogmatic crusade and engage with the evidence, as unlikely as that would be. Until then, Ms Harvey’s sermons will remain just that — preaching to the choir.

This article was first published in the Daily Sceptic (https://dailysceptic.org/2025/06/03/the-guardians-climate-cult-fiona-harveys-latest-sermon-on-cop30/)