Solar panel firm with Greta Thunberg ad sued over £1.5m house fire

A solar-power generating firm that uses Greta Thunberg to promote its products is being sued for more than £1.5 million damages over claims its panels led to a devastating house fire.

Mark and Sarah Evans are suing the award-winning firm Green Energy Electrical, which installed solar panels on their five-bedroom detached house in Essex.

The couple claim the catastrophic fire, which destroyed their home in April 2021, was caused either by a fault in one of the firm’s photovoltaic panels or a heating fault between a panel and electrical cables.

Essex-based Green Energy Electrical uses the example of Greta Thunberg’s activism over climate change as a way of encouraging customers to go solar.

Its website states: “Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s recent school strikes? Installing solar panels will reduce your carbon footprint as well as save you money on your energy bills.”

The firm rejects Mr and Mrs Evans’ claim, dismissing the couple’s theories of how the fire started as “speculative, inherently improbable, and not the most likely causes”.

Instead it said the fire in April 2021 was probably caused by someone else’s defective installation of electrical wiring in the roof, microcracking of panels caused during this work, and physical damage to parts of the panels, possibly when the roof was tiled around the solar panels, or when a chimney flue was put in for a wood-burning stove.

Mr and Mrs Evans said they paid Green Energy £4,627 for a solar-heating system with 14 panels to be fitted on their roof at Evershot Hall in Tolleshunt Knights, near Maldon, in 2017.

They said they cannot give details of the specific fault in the system that caused the fire, as it was completely destroyed in the fire.

But they claim the inferno was caused by a fault in the system and its negligent installation.

An independent witness saw smoke and flames coming from only the bottom-right solar panel, which is consistent with photos taken of the fire.

Firefighters from six fire stations put out the blaze, which also destroyed wall insulation.

Dramatic pictures of the fire were captured by pilot James Lipinski, who was flying with his son Harry, when they saw the fire below.

Mr and Mrs Evans said no-one had gone into the loft since construction had been finished, and the fire happened at lunchtime when the system would have been generating substantial amounts of electricity.

They said the wood-burning stove had not been lit for three or four months, and no smoke or flames came from the flue outlet immediately before the fire.

They have accused Green Energy of negligence and of breaching a contract. They said the solar-panel system supplied was in a defective and unsafe condition, not of satisfactory quality, did not work as described, and was not fit for purpose as it was liable to catch fire in ordinary use.

They are claiming damages of £1,596,097.87, plus interest and costs, and said some of their losses were not insured.

Green Energy, who dispute the claim, were approached for comment.