What drew me into contracting with Achieve Renewable Energy LLC to have them replace our home’s heating and cooling systems with a geothermal system was our town’s HeatSmart program. Our town and two adjacent towns collaborated with some state agencies to run that HeatSmart program, intended to promote the installation of highly energy-efficient heating and coolings systems in residents homes. And the HeatSmart program, run by town volunteers, represented to us that they vetted installers and selected the best installer for each type of system. They selected Achieve Renewable Energy LLC to install geothermal systems.
After the HeatSmart program had been running for several months, the HeatSmart team conducted a survey of customers who participated in the program. And when my attorney later asked the lead volunteer of that program questions in a deposition, the volunteer answered under oath as follows:
Question: And was it regarding negative feedback from Mr. Nigel Simpson that prompted you to coach Mr. Lessard in that conversation about how he treats or communicates to customers?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Was Mr. Simpson the only HeatSmart CCL customer that provided negative feedback about Mr. Lessard or Achieve Renewable Energy’s communication or conduct toward them?
Answer: No.
Regarding feedback from other HeatSmart program customers, the volunteer testified in his deposition that:
Question: Okay. Did Mr. Lessard of Achieve Renewable Energy provide input in that call?
Answer: Yes, he did.
Question: Okay. And of those seven installers, which installer received the lowest average rating from customers?
Answer: Achieve Renewable.
Question: And that was a 2.2 out of 5, correct?
Answer: 2.2 was the overall rating, yes.
Question: Okay. Had you known that Achieve Renewable Energy was likely to receive an average rating of 2.2 out of 5, do you think that the program would have selected him as an installer for the HeatSmart CCL program in the first place?
Answer: Well, I think that, you know, certainly we would have had difficulty justifying the selection based on the information that we had at this point in the program.
The MA towns of Bolton and Harvard ran a concurrent HeatSmart program of their own. But they selected Bill Wenzel Heating & Air Conditioning as their program’s geothermal system installer. And in a subsequent report created by the Cadmus Group on the two separate HeatSmart programs, customers’ feedback on a wide range of aspects of the installers’ performance was consistently higher for Bill Wenzel Heating & Air Conditioning than it was for Achieve Renewable Energy. In the below full report, that information begins on page number 45. The acronyms it uses stand for:
- GSHP: Ground source heat pump (i.e. geothermal system)
- BH: Bolton Harvard HeatSmart program where Bill Wenzel Heating & Air Conditioning was the geothermal system installer
- CCL: Concord Carlisle Lincoln HeatSmart program where Achieve Renewable Energy LLC was the geothermal system installer
After the HeatSmart programs ended, the program’s volunteers ran a subsequent similar program called HeatSmart Alliance. And at a public event to raise awareness of heating and cooling systems, that lead volunteer gave a presentation about such systems. In his deposition, my attorney asked him about that event:
Question: Can you tell me why did — why was Bill Wenzel Heating and Air Conditioning invited to attend as an installer of geothermal systems but not ARE or Achieve Renewable Energy?
Answer: When we were planning this event, we decided that we wanted to have just one geothermal heat pump installer, and we’ve heard good feedback, including some of the feedback you just mentioned. While I wasn’t aware of that particular report, I was aware, we, the volunteer group was aware of generally positive feedback about Bill Wenzel, and so, he was considered a good choice to invite to this event.
Question: And was the group also aware of negative feedback regarding Achieve Renewable Energy at that point in time?
Answer: Yes. We were aware of that.
Question: Was that a consideration for why ARE was not invited to attend the event?
Answer: Yes, it was.