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- Last summer, Tesla launched "Project Titan," an attempt to discreetly replace defective solar panel parts across the country, according to documents consulted by Business Insider.
- Specifically, Tesla replaced connectors and optimizers, components designed to regulate the amount of energy transmitted to a solar panel. Too much energy can cause a fire.
- Earlier this week, Walmart sued Tesla, saying the energy company had been negligent in managing more than 240 Tesla solar panels on their rooftops. Fires broke out on seven of Walmart's solar roofs.
- Walmart stated in its complaint that Tesla had never provided sufficient analysis of the "root causes" of why these fires had occurred. The existence of Project Titan answers some of these questions.
- In a statement to Business Insider, Tesla confirmed that it was replacing parts of its solar panels, calling it "a clean-up effort to limit any impact of [H-4] connector may have had ".
- To be clear, this problem has affected Tesla's solar panels, not its Solar Roof shingle product.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
In the summer of 2018, Tesla launched a large-scale enterprise: stealthily replacing parts of solar panels throughout the country. This was called Project Titan, learned Business Insider.
The defective parts in question were the Amphenol H4 connectors – connectors and the SolarEdge optimizers. These parts are supposed to regulate the flow of energy and heat to a solar panel, ensuring that the room is as powered as possible without overheating. Overheating can cause a fire.
"Some of SolarCity's installed modules and optimizers from various manufacturers have been manufactured with Amphenol H4 connectors, a piece commonly used in the industry at the time," Business Insider spokesperson told a spokesman. from Tesla.
The spokesperson went on to explain that Tesla's software monitoring applications had detected a "small number" of connectors that had failures and disconnections beyond the allowed standards.
Amphenol and SolarEdge did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
"In the last year, less than 1% of sites with this connector exhibited abnormal behavior," said a spokesman for Tesla.
"Tesla is meeting its commitments to its customers, who expect their solar facilities to reliably generate clean, low-cost energy for a contract term of 10 to 20 years." to replace the defective connectors on these sites allows Tesla to meet this commitment. "
Business Insider has learned that these impacted parts were "quarantined" as part of the Titan project, then reworked and re-sold on roofs or scrapped. A paper consulted by Business Insider indicates that the number of parts to be quarantined in warehouses and distribution centers rose to more than 120,000 in September 2018. A spokesman for Tesla said that this number was not accurate.
In his statement, Tesla described the Titan project as "a corrective effort to limit any possible impact of the connector, even though we are not aware of any manufacturer or regulatory body that determined the Existence of a significant danger ".
Enter Walmart. This week, the retailer filed a lawsuit against Tesla. He was a SolarCity customer (bought by Tesla in 2016) since 2010. In his complaint, Walmart claims that Tesla has not managed or maintained solar panels on hundreds of Walmart roofs across the country, in accordance with their agreement , which stipulated that Tesla owned all the solar panels on the rooftops of Walmarts.
Walmart says in its lawsuit that Tesla's negligence has sparked fires on seven roofs in states from Ohio to California. As a result, Walmart informed Tesla of its intention to "power off" its roofs – disconnect Tesla systems – on May 31, 2018.
Walmart claims that Tesla has installed faulty connectors, but Tesla still has not provided Walmart with the "root cause" of all these problems. He provided analyzes for a single site, in Beavercreek, Ohio.
Turning off the power did not stop Tesla systems from igniting either, Walmart said in its complaint:
In November 2018, Walmart discovered that another fire was reported at a Walmart store in Yuba City, California, even though the solar panels at this store were off since June 2018. The wires on the roof of the store still produced sparks at that time. that Walmart discovered the fire and could have lit larger flames, with potentially devastating consequences.
Equally troubling, after Tesla technicians went to the roof, one of the technicians did not close the cover of the combiner box, exposing this important piece of equipment to the elements and creating a risk fire. Even more troubling, Walmart later learned (apart from Tesla) that a potentially dangerous ground alert had occurred at the Yuba City site in the summer of 2018. Tesla had either ignored the alert or deliberately failed to disclose it to Walmart. The problems at the origin of this ground fault alert probably caused or contributed to the fire that followed in the autumn of 2018, revealing the total incompetence of Tesla, his total insensitivity , or both.
A former Tesla employee, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said that Tesla's life was chaotic and more chaotic during the Titan project.
"That's how it all goes, we solve problems as and when," said the former employee, who left earlier this year. "There is no planning ahead, there are too many fires to extinguish.
If you have information about Project Titan or how Tesla has tried to solve its solar problems, email me at [email protected].
On March 7, 2018, there was a fire on the roof of solar panels of a Tesla-owned building and operated by it on a Walmart at Beavercreek in Ohio. The fire was so serious that the store was closed for eight days, according to the complaint.
In April 2018, Tesla was still deciding what to do about this situation. According to internal documents dated April 24, the company was still considering replacing the 100 modules of damaged solar panels on the roof. The solar panel model installed on the roof was not in stock at Tesla. Employees rushed to find a compatible model.
The model identification number for the solar panels on Walmart's roof was PV-10119-255, which would later be quarantined during the Titan project, according to internal documents.
In order to run the Titan project, Tesla ordered supplies, including ladders and tool belts, and sent crews across the United States, according to a source. Spare parts also had to be ordered because all H-4 connectors had to be replaced with MC4 connectors.
It did not happen all at once. Standard operating procedures had to be defined, teams were formed, depending on the source. In December 2018, 188 Tesla trucks were sent to nearly 50 US cities to replace defective connectors and Project Titan compatible optimizers, according to Tesla documents consulted by Business Insider. Tesla declined to comment.
Even the Walmart documents were still there at the time, as the documents show. In January, Tesla was still rushing to repair the Titan project in at least one Walmart store before it could be inspected.
In April 2019, Tesla further refined the procedures of the Titan project. For example, according to an internal document released in early April, Tesla asked all repair crews to use refurbished parts as first choice to replace damaged optimizers and connectors by the end of the month. .
Tesla said it was a refurbished optimizer from the factory that had a different connector to the Amphenol H4 connector and that the part met its safety standards.
Until the day Walmart filed its lawsuit, Tesla only inspected 29 of 240 sites equipped with Tesla solar roofs, according to Walmart's lawsuit. According to Walmart, these reports lacked paperwork. The sites were complicated to inspect because Tesla lacked precise drawings of the parts, the solar panels came from different manufacturers and their components were incorrectly labeled, according to the complaint. According to the complaint, more than half of the sites inspected had failed connectors – not the MC4 connectors that the Titan project was to be set up.
Tesla told Business Insider that she thought Project Titan had been successful in solving the problems associated with the H4 connector and its higher failure rate.
But the former Tesla employee said that he was not sure that Tesla was able to find and replace all the defective optimizers and connectors nationwide.
"We do not have a dedicated department to do these things," they said. "Everything goes in one direction – make the product, sell the product, install the product … There is no maintenance, the customer is just supposed to monitor this on his cell phone apps and call us s & # He has a problem. "
On Thursday night, Walmart and Tesla issued a joint statement on the lawsuit: "Walmart and Tesla are eager to solve all the problems and re-energize Tesla solar installations in Walmart stores, once all parties are convinced that all their concerns have been resolved. "
"Together, we look forward to our common goal of a sustainable energy future," the statement said. "The two companies want above all things to work reliably, efficiently and safely."
If you have information about Project Titan or how Tesla has tried to solve its solar problems, email me at [email protected].
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