What to Do If Your Solar Company Goes Out of Business

Solar installer bankruptcies have become a real and growing concern for homeowners. Roughly 100 US solar companies have filed for bankruptcy or shut down since 2023, including major names — Titan Solar Power and the original SunPower Corporation in 2024, Sunnova and the solar lender Mosaic in 2025, and Freedom Forever (the second-largest residential installer in the country) filing Chapter 11 in April 2026. If your installer is one of them, here’s exactly what changes and what doesn’t.

Table of Contents

• Why This Is Happening in 2026
• The Three Warranties You Actually Have
• What Survives a Bankruptcy
• What’s at Risk
• Chapter 7 vs Chapter 11: Why It Matters
• Step-by-Step: What to Do
• If You Have a Loan
• If You Have a Lease or PPA
• FAQ

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Why This Is Happening in 2026

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The residential solar industry has faced significant financial pressure since 2024: higher interest rates made solar loans and leases more expensive to finance, and the expiration of the federal 30% residential solar tax credit (Section 25D) at the end of 2025 removed a major consumer incentive that many companies’ sales models depended on. Industry-wide installation volume fell sharply starting in 2024, and analysts project continued contraction in 2026 — conditions that have pushed a wave of installers, including some of the largest names in the industry, into bankruptcy.

The Three Warranties You Actually Have

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Most homeowners don’t realize their solar system carries three separate, independently issued warranties, not one:

1. Manufacturer warranty — covers the panels, inverter, and any battery, issued by the equipment maker (Qcells, Enphase, Tesla, REC, and so on), not the installer.
2. Workmanship (installer) warranty — covers the quality of the installation itself: roof penetrations, wiring, mounting. This is issued directly by the installer.
3. Production or performance guarantee — some installers separately guarantee a minimum production level, tied to the installer’s own contract terms.

What Survives a Bankruptcy

Manufacturer warranties on your panels, inverter, and battery remain valid regardless of what happens to your installer, since they’re issued by the equipment manufacturer, not the company that installed the system. If a covered component fails, you can typically contact the manufacturer directly for warranty support even with no functioning relationship with your original installer.

What’s at Risk

The installer’s own workmanship warranty is the piece most at risk. When a company goes bankrupt, its warranty and service obligations are generally treated as unsecured debts in the bankruptcy process, and unsecured creditors are last in line behind lenders and other priority claims — in practice, homeowners typically recover little to nothing through the bankruptcy process itself for this specific coverage. This matters most for issues tied to installation quality specifically, like a roof leak from a mounting penetration.

Chapter 7 vs Chapter 11: Why It Matters

• Chapter 7 is liquidation — the company stops operating entirely and sells off its assets. Pink Energy (formerly Power Home Solar) followed this path in 2022.
• Chapter 11 is reorganization — the business can continue operating while restructuring its debts, and may later be acquired, merged, or still eventually liquidated. Sunnova (2025) and Freedom Forever (April 2026) both filed under Chapter 11, and in many cases customer systems kept producing electricity throughout the process even as workmanship warranties ended up in limbo.

An acquisition by another installer, which happens fairly often in Chapter 11 cases, tends to be the best outcome for customers, since it usually causes the least disruption to ongoing service and support.

Step-by-Step: What to Do

1. Keep paying your loan or lease — a bankruptcy filing changes who’s responsible for your system, not whether you still owe money on it.
2. Gather your paperwork — your original contract, equipment model numbers and serial numbers, warranty documents, and permit records. How to Get Utility Approval for a Solar System
3. Take back control of your monitoring account if it was set up under the installer’s name, so you retain visibility into your system’s performance.
4. Contact your equipment manufacturers directly to confirm warranty status and register your system with them if you haven’t already.
5. Check if your loan or lease was sold to a new servicer — this is common and usually happens automatically, with the same payment terms carrying over.
6. Find a new local installer for service and repairs — many local installers regularly take over «orphaned» systems they didn’t originally build.
7. File a complaint with your state licensing board or attorney general’s consumer protection office if you believe you were misled during the original sale, since this path can remain available even after the original company has closed.

If You Have a Loan

If you financed your system with a solar loan, you still owe the remaining balance regardless of what happens to the installer — the loan is typically held by a separate lender, not the installer itself, and that obligation doesn’t disappear. What can change is which company services the loan, if the original lender also experiences financial trouble (as happened with the solar lender Mosaic in 2025).

If You Have a Lease or PPA

A lease or Power Purchase Agreement is typically structured to be «bankruptcy-remote,» meaning the contract itself transfers to a new servicing company at the same payment terms if the original company closes, rather than simply disappearing. In practice, this has been the pattern across recent large installer bankruptcies — the contract continues, just administered by a different company.

*Trade press coverage (PV Magazine, Canary Media) for the case cited + state Attorney General’s office / Better Business Bureau for consumer protection.

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FAQ

Will my solar panels stop working if my installer goes bankrupt? No. Your system continues producing electricity regardless of your installer’s business status — panels, inverters, and batteries operate independently of who sold or installed them.

Do I still owe money on my solar loan if the installer closes? Yes. Your loan obligation is separate from your installer’s business status and doesn’t go away, though the company servicing your loan payments may change if it gets sold to a new servicer.

Is my manufacturer’s warranty gone if my installer disappears? No. Manufacturer warranties on panels, inverters, and batteries are issued by the equipment maker, not the installer, and remain valid regardless of what happens to the company that installed your system.

What’s most likely to be lost if my installer goes out of business? The installer’s own workmanship warranty — covering things like roof penetrations and wiring quality — is the piece most likely to be voided or difficult to recover through the bankruptcy process, since it’s an unsecured obligation of the now-defunct company.