Firm sues Hydro over rebate program

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This article was published 25/12/2019 (1730 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sycamore Energy is suing Manitoba Hydro, alleging the Crown corporation’s mismanagement of its solar rebate program resulted in an exodus of potential customers, sending the solar installation and design company into an economic tailspin.

“The last thing we want to do is to be suing Manitoba Hydro, but we feel we have no choice,” Sycamore CEO Justin Phillips said in a news release. “Their actions have cost us millions in lost business.”

Sycamore filed a statement of claim seeking damages for, among other things, inducing breach of contract and intentional interference with economic relations.

Manitoba Hydro introduced its two-year pilot project solar energy power rebate program in 2016 — which provides a $1,000 rebate for every kilowatt of solar power installed — in which it partnered with solar energy companies, including Sycamore.

The program was more popular than anticipated.

Manitoba Hydro expected 100 applications and instead received close to 1,700. As of November, 20 months after the last rebate application was filed, more than 250 approved projects had yet to be installed, close to 100 of them Sycamore clients.

According to its statement of claim, Sycamore was approached by customers for more than 3,300 installations, and ultimately entered into contracts for 300.

Sycamore alleges Manitoba Hydro imposed additional requirements on customers following the commencement of the program, resulting in delays and additional costs; started imposing hard deadlines for installations; and changed how it would compensate customers for excess solar energy.

From the start of the program, “there was a clear lack of organization and planning by Hydro of the program,” the lawsuit alleges. “This deficiency on the part of Hydro resulted in a great number of delays to Sycamore’s planned installations due to additional requirements that were implemented or changed by Hydro from time to time unilaterally and without consultation with Sycamore… These added requirements forced Sycamore to make compliance adjustments at a substantial increase in non-recoverable costs and delays to Sycamore.”

Sycamore alleges Hydro agreed to all installation extension requests until September without complaint. Then Hydro advised that all installations had to be completed by March 31, 2020, “at the very latest” and that if all the required documentation was not provided to Hydro by Dec. 31, the customer’s application would be cancelled.

“These deadlines communicated by Hydro were completely arbitrary and without justification,” the suit alleges.

Sycamore alleges Manitoba Hydro started calling and emailing Sycamore clients last month, offering extensions to their deadlines on the condition they switch installers.

“Within two weeks… at least 10 customers of Sycamore cancelled their purchase orders in favour of signing with installation competitors,” costing the company $300,000, the lawsuit alleges.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

A Manitoba Hydro spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the corporation would file a statement of defence “in due course.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca