Renova Energy resumes operations, onboarding a portion of their staff

Renova Energy exclusively spoke to News Channel 3 Wednesday, telling us they are resuming all services and bringing back some of its workforce.

We were the only crew at Renova's Corporate Center on July 19, when Renova Energy's Founder and CEO, Vincent Battaglia shared that he had to make the difficult decision to furlough the majority of Renova's staff after their parent company, Sunpower defaulted.

"We're glad to have them back. You know, went from a very sad and scary moment, to working hard and welcoming people back to the family, and it's exciting," said Renova Energy's Human Resources Director, Aaron Gamez.

Almost a month to the day after the difficult choice to furlough the majority of its staff, Battaglia announced that operations have resumed, allowing for the return of some staff.

"Yesterday, we had 35 full time. We added another 30 full time today," said Battaglia.

This announcement comes on the heels of striking a deal with a new lease partner and financial investor.

"We are also representing a new lease and new financing through the world's largest residential solar panel manufacturer called QCells," added Battaglia. "Now that QCells will step in and be able to take care of anyone who had a Sunpower lease but was abandoned by Sunpower."

Renova hopes to transition its customers from their Sunpower leases to Qcells leases starting next week.

"We'll be reaching out to all customers who had a lease with Sunpower and they may have had a different type of solar module or solar panel in their lease, we'll be moving them into the Qcells panel," said Battaglia. "We'll explain everything to them if they're interested, if they're not interested in moving forward on the lease, then they can, of course, they're free to go anywhere else because Sunpower had essentially nullified those lease contracts."

The announcement providing relief to customers and employees that were hopeful to return to work.

"This is like giving everybody a hand, and we all appreciate Vincent for calling us back, because it could have taken longer, but luckily, he got the ball rolling in less than a month. And I think everybody's just more than appreciative," said Renova Energy Crew Lead, Angel Lopez.

The goal is to onboard at least a third of Renova Energy's employees in the next two months.

The company furloughed about 300 employees in mid-July and has officially brought back a little over 60 full-time employees.

Battaglia also says he has a backlog of about 350 cash and signed leases that he’s focused on installing by the end of the year.

His primary focus is to take care of the customers that signed a contract with Renova Energy before July 19.

This is a developing story, make sure to stay with us for the very latest.

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