The Supreme Court upholds, 6 to 3, the arbitration clause in solar-panel contracts

On July 27, 2026, NotiCel reports that the Supreme Court, in a 6-to-3 vote, upheld the validity of a Sunrun contract clause that requires taking disputes over the functioning of photovoltaic systems to private arbitrators, not to the courts. The case was resolved July 10 and concerns a contract processed in 2020 by Máximo Solar Industries, Inc., but that Sunrun PR Operations, Inc. must honor. On the island there are about 200,000 distributed-generation systems; of those, at least 30,000 are Sunrun customers. Adoption, the outlet notes, accelerated after Hurricane María.

The plaintiff's agreement, Nancy Sierra Lugo, was to rent the system for 25 years, with a monthly payment of $246 the first year and a 1.9 percent annual increase. In exchange, Sunrun was to monitor and provide labor and materials. It is alleged that the system worked only two weeks and that, on claiming, she learned that Sunrun was the other party and received a copy of the agreement, originally signed on a tablet. The clause says arbitration will be the only means, except small-claims before a competent court, exclusively in her own name.

Nancy Sierra Lugo raised vitiated consent, because she signed without discussing terms, and fraud, because she thought she was contracting with Máximo. The majority, in the voice of Justice Camille Rivera Pérez, agreed with the Court of First Instance: the clause requires letting an arbitrator decide whether the claim stays in arbitration or can go to court. The fraud allegations, it adds, were not made with sufficient specificity, and state and federal public policy favors arbitration. Arbitration implies that the parties pay for the private process.

Chief Justice Maite Oronoz Rodríguez and Associate Justices Luis Estrella Martínez and Ángel Colón Pérez dissent: they hold that the plaintiff did enough. NotiCel truncates that dissent. This magazine does not complete it. This ruling is also not mixed with the 11 solar farms the Board approved on July 3 nor with the pause on permanent generation of the 23rd. Rooftops, farms, and RFPs are three genres.

The 6 to 3, the 200,000 systems, Sunrun's 30,000, and the $246 stand. The reader who wants the opinion has the NotiCel URL at the foot. This is not original reporting.

Source: NotiCel. https://noticel.com/noticias/20260727/supremo-sostiene-clausula-de-arbitraje-en-contratos-de-placas-solares/