Your solar installer went out of business. Here's what to do, in order.

If your solar installer went out of business, here’s what to do first: don’t panic, and don’t stop any payments. Your system almost certainly still works, and your manufacturer warranties still exist. What you’ve lost is the company that held your records, your monitoring account and your workmanship warranty. The job now is to collect those records, regain visibility into production and find someone new to call.

This isn’t rare. SunPower filed for Chapter 11 in August 2024 and sold several of its assets to Complete Solaria, which later took the SunPower name. Sunnova, a large residential solar financier and service provider, filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on June 8, 2025. Smaller local installers close too, usually with less notice and no public filing. Homeowners left behind have what the industry calls orphaned systems.

As of November 1, 2026: bankruptcy cases and the companies that buy failed installers’ assets change over time. If a specific company is involved, check the court’s official notices for the latest.

The installer left. The system didn’t. With the right records, someone new can pick up the rope.

First: is the system actually working?

Before chasing paperwork, check whether anything’s wrong.

• Look at the inverter. Most have a status light or a small display. A steady green light or a “producing” message on a sunny afternoon is a good sign. Red or amber lights, error codes or a blank screen are worth a photo.
• Don’t open equipment or go on the roof. Solar systems carry high DC voltage even when the grid is down. Diagnosis and repair are jobs for a licensed electrician or a qualified solar technician.
• Don’t rely on your utility bill alone. At LG&E and KU, as the utilities themselves note, the net meter records only the energy that flows onto the grid, not total generation. Lower exports could mean a fault, or just that you used more power at home.

The checklist

1. Find your contract and equipment list

Gather the purchase contract or lease, the final invoice, any change orders and the equipment list. If you can’t find them, three other places often hold copies:

Record	Where it usually lives	Who to ask
Contract, invoice, warranty certificates	Your email, closing papers or a homeowner portal	Search your inbox for the installer’s name
Permit file with plans	Local building or planning office	Ask for the permit file for your address
Interconnection application, one-line drawing, site layout, inverter specifications	Your utility	Your utility’s net metering or interconnection contact
Permission to operate letter	Your utility	Same contact
Loan or lease agreement	Your lender or leasing company	The servicer listed on your statement

LG&E and KU require a one-line electrical drawing, a site layout and the inverter manufacturer’s specification with every net metering application. That makes the utility’s file one of the best surviving records of what was actually installed.

2. Identify every manufacturer

You need the brand, model and serial number of the panels, the inverter or microinverters, any optimizers, batteries and the monitoring gateway. Inverter labels are usually reachable at ground level, near the meter or inside the garage. For roof equipment, use the plans or a zoomed photo from the ground rather than climbing up.

3. Recover monitoring access

Most residential monitoring runs on the inverter maker’s platform, not the installer’s. Installers typically held an “installer” or “fleet” account, with the homeowner as a secondary user or not on the account at all. Contact the manufacturer’s support line with:

• The inverter or gateway serial numbers
• Proof of ownership, such as the contract, a deed or the permit record
• The site address and, if you know it, the original installer’s name

Ask them to add you as the owner or assign the site to a new service provider. Some systems also need their gateway reconnected to your Wi-Fi after a router change, which is a common reason “monitoring stopped working.”

4. Sort out your warranties

There are usually three layers, and they behave differently:

• Manufacturer product and performance warranties come from the maker of each component. They normally survive the installer’s closure. Register each one in your name if you haven’t.
• Workmanship warranty comes from the installer and covers installation defects, wiring and often roof leaks around the mounts. It usually ends when the company does, unless an insurer or third party backed it.
• Roof warranty may come from your roofer, and your roofer’s terms may say something about later roof penetrations. Read them before anyone drills new holes.

Some manufacturer warranties pay for the part but not the labor to replace it. Find out which yours is before a failure, not after.

5. Find who services it now

Call two or three local installers and ask whether they take service calls on systems they didn’t install. Useful questions:

• Have you worked with my inverter brand, and are you set up on its service platform?
• What’s your trip charge, and what does a diagnostic visit include?
• Will your work affect any remaining manufacturer warranty?

6. Watch for lender and leasing company changes

If you financed the system, the lender is usually a separate company from the installer, and your loan continues. Keep paying under the contract.

If it’s your lender or leasing company that’s in bankruptcy, servicing may move to a new company. Your obligations generally continue under the contract. Verify any notice of a new servicer through your existing account portal, the official bankruptcy notices or the contract’s notice address before you send a payment anywhere new. A letter or call asking you to redirect payments is a classic setup for fraud.

If you believe the failed company owes you a refund or warranty work, a bankruptcy court sets deadlines for filing claims. Ask an attorney whether filing one makes sense.

7. Protect your net metering status

Kentucky law lets an installation transfer to a new owner at the same premises, after notice to the utility. It also matters what you change. KU’s NMS-1 rider says replacements in the ordinary course that cause only incidental capacity increases don’t affect a legacy customer’s NMS-1 service. LG&E and KU also say adding capacity or modifying the system moves a customer to NMS-2. Before replacing an inverter with a different model or adding panels, ask the utility in writing how the change will be treated. Our Kentucky net metering explainer explains why legacy status is worth protecting.

8. Document production now

Start a simple file: monthly production from monitoring, monthly exports from your bill and the original proposal’s production estimate. If something fails later, you’ll want to show when output dropped. Manufacturers and new service providers both ask.

Buying a house with an orphaned system

The same checklist applies if you’re the buyer. Before closing, ask the seller for the contract, equipment list, warranty registrations, monitoring login and the utility’s permission-to-operate letter. Ask which net metering rider the system is on and when it began service. If there’s a lease or loan, find out whether it transfers, what the new servicer requires and whether any filing in the county records needs to be released or assigned. Your attorney and title company can tell you how those items are handled at closing.

A system with no records isn’t worthless. It’s an unknown, and unknowns deserve a price adjustment or an inspection by a qualified technician before you agree to own it.

What an unnoticed fault costs

Here’s an illustrative 7 kW KU system producing 8,750 kWh a year. It uses 40% of its output at home and exports the rest at the NMS-2 credit, so each kWh is worth about 9.1¢ on average.

Scenario	Lost production	Lost bill value
One of two inverters, serving half the array, fails in May and is noticed in October	About 2,250 kWh	About $205
The whole system stops and goes unnoticed for 14 months	About 10,200 kWh	About $927

Neither number is catastrophic. The point is that no one tells you. Without monitoring, a quiet failure is invisible until someone happens to look, and the longer it runs, the harder it is to prove when it started. Our post on five monitoring metrics that matter shows what to watch once access is restored.

What we’d do

• Today: photograph the inverter display and labels, and find the contract.
• This week: request the permit file and the utility’s interconnection records. Call the inverter manufacturer about monitoring.
• This month: register manufacturer warranties in your name and line up a service provider.
• Ongoing: keep a monthly production log and check it against expected output each season.
• Before any change: confirm with your utility how the work affects your net metering rider.

If you’d rather hand this off, our System Health Check is built for orphaned systems. We recover data access where possible, compare actual production with an expected baseline and list what to ask a qualified technician, and what not to pay for. The written report arrives seven business days after data access is restored. We don’t do repairs or electrical work; we tell you what the data says and help you hire the right licensed professional.

This article is general information, not legal advice. For questions about contracts, liens or bankruptcy claims, consult an attorney.