What happens if my solar company goes bankrupt?

Your panels keep working. If you own the system it stays yours; if you lease or have a PPA, the provider's portfolio is usually sold to another company and your agreement continues. Your loan survives and you keep paying it. Panel and inverter manufacturer warranties usually remain valid, but the installer's workmanship warranty and monitoring may be lost, leaving a working system with nobody to service it.

Do I still pay my solar loan if the company goes bankrupt?

Yes. A solar loan is almost always a separate agreement with a lender, not the installer, so the installer's bankruptcy does not cancel it. Loans are routinely sold or transferred to new servicers. Keep making payments, and watch for a verified notice telling you where to send them. Stopping payments does not erase the debt and will damage your credit.

My solar company went out of business, what do I do?

Keep paying your loan or lease, gather your contract, equipment list, and warranty documents, and confirm the system is still producing through your monitoring app or bills. File equipment defects directly with the panel or inverter manufacturer, and find a local installer willing to adopt the system for workmanship and future service. If you are owed an unfinished install or deposit, you may be able to file a claim in the bankruptcy case.

Which solar companies went bankrupt in 2025 and 2026?

More than 100 US solar companies have filed for bankruptcy or shut down since 2023. Major residential names include SunPower (Chapter 11 in August 2024), Titan Solar Power (closed 2024), Sunnova (Chapter 11 in June 2025), and Freedom Forever, ranked the top US residential contractor by installed capacity, which filed Chapter 11 on April 15, 2026.

How do I choose a solar company that will not go out of business?

You cannot guarantee it, but you can lower the risk. Favor a workmanship warranty that is backed or insured by a third party so it survives the company, weigh financial durability over brand size, require a named backup service provider in the contract, and choose equipment from established manufacturers. Size alone is not protection, as the 2026 failures of large national companies showed.

Solar Company Bankruptcies in 2026: What Happens to Your Panels, Loan, and Warranty

Q: Do I still own my solar panels if the installer goes bankrupt?

If you bought the system with cash or a loan, yes, the panels are your property and the bankruptcy gives the failed company no claim to them. If you lease or have a power purchase agreement, the provider owns the panels, and when it goes bankrupt your agreement is typically transferred to whoever buys the portfolio, on its existing terms.

Updated Jul 31, 2026 • 8 min read

Written by ClearChoiceRadar Editorial

The short version

A working solar system does not stop working when the company that installed it goes bankrupt. The panels keep producing. What changes is who, if anyone, is on the hook to service them, and where your money goes.

Three questions decide where you actually stand, and they have different answers:

Do you own the system? If you bought it, the panels are yours and stay yours. If you lease or have a power purchase agreement, the provider owns them.
Who holds your loan? Almost always a separate lender, not the installer, so the debt survives the installer's bankruptcy.
Whose name is on each warranty? The panel and inverter warranties come from their manufacturers and usually survive. The installer's workmanship warranty often does not.

The rest of this guide works through each one, then what to do if your installer just failed, and how to pick one that is less likely to leave you stranded in the first place.

Who actually went under, and why

This is not a story about fly-by-night local shops. The companies that failed in 2025 and 2026 were some of the largest names in American residential solar. More than 100 US solar companies have filed for bankruptcy or shut down since 2023.

Major US residential solar failures, 2024 to 2026. Sources: pv magazine USA, Solar Power World, Utility Dive.

Company	What happened
SunPower	Filed Chapter 11 in August 2024, one of the most recognized brands in the industry.
Titan Solar Power	Ceased operations in 2024, having been a major regional installer.
Sunnova	Filed Chapter 11 on June 9, 2025. The second-largest provider of leased and power-purchase-agreement systems, serving more than 500,000 customers, with plans to sell and wind down.
Freedom Forever	Filed Chapter 11 on April 15, 2026. Ranked the top residential solar contractor in the country by installed capacity, with close to 2 gigawatts across 35 states.

The causes were structural, not isolated: years of high interest rates, market overcapacity, policy changes such as California's lower export rates, and the expiration of the 30 percent federal tax credit for homeowner-owned systems at the end of 2025, which removed a major source of demand. The takeaway for a homeowner is uncomfortable but useful: the size of the company was not a reliable guarantee of its survival.

Do you still have to pay your solar loan?

Yes. This is the single most important thing to understand, because getting it wrong wrecks your credit.

When you finance panels, the loan is almost always a separate agreement with a lender or financing platform, not with the installer. That loan is an asset. When the installer fails, your financing does not disappear; it continues with whoever holds it, and loans are routinely sold to or serviced by other companies. Even when a financing platform itself files (as Solar Mosaic did), the individual loans are assets that get transferred, and borrowers still owe them.

So the rule is simple: keep making your payments. Watch your mail and email for a notice telling you your loan has a new servicer and where to send payments, and confirm any such notice independently before changing anything. Stopping payments because the installer went under does not cancel the debt; it just adds a delinquency to your credit report. How solar loans, leases, and PPAs are structured is covered in our solar financing guide.

What happens to your panels

It depends on whether you own the system, and the difference is stark.

If you bought the system, with cash or a loan, the panels on your roof are your property. A bankruptcy does not give the failed company any claim to equipment it already sold and installed. The hardware is yours; the open question is only about service and warranty, below.

If you lease or have a power purchase agreement, the provider owns the equipment, not you. When a lease or PPA provider like Sunnova enters bankruptcy, its portfolio of customer agreements is itself a valuable asset that is typically sold to or managed by another company. Your agreement generally continues on its existing terms, and you keep making payments to whoever takes over the portfolio. You do not suddenly own the panels, and they are not removed from your roof.

What happens to your warranty

Solar systems carry more than one warranty, and they fail differently when the installer disappears.

Warranty	Who backs it	Survives the installer's bankruptcy?
Panel product and performance	The panel manufacturer	Usually yes, it is a separate company
Inverter product	The inverter manufacturer (for example Enphase or SolarEdge)	Usually yes, it is a separate company
Workmanship / labor	The installer	Often no, this is the one you can lose
Monitoring and service	The installer	Often interrupted or lost

The practical result is an "orphaned" system: the equipment is fine and its manufacturer warranties are intact, but the company that would have sent someone to fix a bad connection or a roof leak is gone. For equipment defects, you file directly with the manufacturer. For workmanship issues or service, you generally need to find a local installer willing to take over the system, which many will do for a fee.

What to do right now if your installer just failed

If the company that installed your system has just gone under, work through this list in order:

Keep paying your loan, lease, or PPA. The obligation survives. Missing payments only damages your credit.
Gather your paperwork. Find your contract, the equipment list with make and model numbers, all warranty documents, and your monitoring login. You will need these to make any warranty claim.
Check that the system is still producing. Look at your monitoring app or your electric bills. A system that quietly stopped exporting is the expensive problem to catch early.
Contact equipment manufacturers directly for any panel or inverter fault, since those warranties are separate from the installer.
Line up a local service company to adopt the system for workmanship and future service. Ask specifically whether they will service equipment they did not install.
If you are owed something, such as an unfinished install or a deposit, you may be able to file a proof of claim in the bankruptcy case, though unsecured customers are often far back in line.

How to choose a company that will not leave you stranded

The 2026 failures rewrote what "best solar company" should mean. It is no longer mainly about the lowest price or the biggest brand. It is about who will still be standing, and reachable, in year ten. Weigh these before you sign:

A workmanship warranty that survives the company. Ask, in writing, whether the labor warranty is backed or insured by a third party. That single feature is what turns a promise into something enforceable if the installer is gone.
Financial durability over brand size. Freedom Forever and Sunnova were as big as it gets, and it did not protect their customers. Do not pay a premium for size alone.
A named backup service provider in the contract, so responsibility for service is defined before anything goes wrong.
Manufacturer-backed equipment from established makers whose own warranties are worth something.

Our full how to choose a solar company guide walks through vetting any installer, and our comparison of local vs national solar companies covers why bigger is not safer. When you are ready to compare specific companies, start with our solar company rankings.