When a homeowner signs a solar contract, they expect the panels to pay for themselves over time. But a new industry-wide tally shows that bet has gone sour for thousands of customers, as the companies they trusted vanish while their loans remain.
Installers rarely hold the loans they sell, so when an installer goes bankrupt, the loan does not go away.”— SolarPanelExit.com Editorial TeamSPRING, TX, UNITED STATES, October 24, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The US residential solar industry has seen a staggering shakeout, with at least 91 companies tied to the market going bankrupt, shutting their doors, or abandoning the sector entirely since January 2022, according to the SolarPanelExit.com Solar Company Bankruptcy Study 2026. The tally spans from January 1, 2022, through October 21, 2026, and includes installers, lenders, lease providers, servicers, and equipment manufacturers. Of those 91 firms, 77 (84.6%) went through a bankruptcy court or similar legal proceeding, while 14 simply closed up shop or exited without any court filing being found.
The findings come from the SolarPanelExit.com Solar Company Bankruptcy Register, a database compiled from court dockets, claims agent portals, securities filings, regulatory records, and news reports. Among the 91 entries, 72 have a specific court and case number attached, 80 are verified against an official docket, claims agent, regulator, or securities filing, or corroborated by at least two news outlets, and every single entry includes links to its underlying sources.
The pace of failures has been uneven, climbing from 8 in 2022 to 18 in 2023, spiking to 29 in 2024, and then easing to 24 in 2025. So far this year, there have been 11 through October 21, all of which are court cases, and that number is expected to grow as new filings make their way into public docket databases. One closure on the list has no known date attached to it.
When solar companies do end up in court, they rarely emerge intact. Of the 77 court cases tracked, 51 (66.2%) are Chapter 7 liquidations: 41 filed for Chapter 7 from the start, while 10 converted from Chapter 11. For the six converted cases where both dates are documented, the average time between the initial Chapter 11 filing and the conversion was 118 days. Two notable recent cases: Freedom Forever’s bankruptcy was converted to Chapter 7 effective August 7, 2026 (Delaware bankruptcy court, case 26-10522), and North Bay Solar Electric, a California contractor, filed for Chapter 7 on October 15, 2026 (Northern District of California bankruptcy court, case 26-10790).
For homeowners, the most painful reality is that their financial obligation typically survives the company’s demise. In 36 of the entries, the customer’s loan or lease remained with the original lender or was handed off to a named servicer. For instance, SunStrong Management now handles legacy Sunnova contracts for Solaris Assets, as well as old SunPower leases and power purchase agreements, while Solar Servicing LLC, a subsidiary of Forbright Bank, has been servicing former Solar Mosaic loans since September 22, 2025.
That disconnect between the installer’s fate and the loan’s persistence is showing up in consumer complaint data. In a separate SolarPanelExit.com analysis of 1,705 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) complaints filed against six residential solar lenders and servicers, complaints against Solar Mosaic jumped from 164 in the four quarters before its June 2025 bankruptcy filing to 467 in the four quarters after. Sunnova saw a similar, though smaller, rise from 23 to 50 complaints over the same comparison windows. The study notes that the CFPB does not verify complaints and that complaint volume also reflects each company’s customer base size.
Geographically, the pain is spread wide. Counting each state where a company was headquartered or operated, Texas leads the pack with 19, followed by California with 18 and Florida with 13, and a total of 40 states have at least one affected company.
“Installers rarely hold the loans they sell, so when an installer goes bankrupt, the loan does not go away. It stays with the lender or moves to a new servicer,” said the SolarPanelExit.com Editorial Team. “We put the case number, the filing date and, where the record shows it, the current servicer in one place.”
Method and limits
The study defines its scope as companies tied to US home solar that, since January 1, 2022, filed for bankruptcy, entered receivership, an assignment for the benefit of creditors, or a foreign insolvency proceeding, or that closed or exited residential solar. Two notable entries—ADT Solar and LG Electronics’ solar panel business—left the home solar market while still solvent. In 24 entries, a bankruptcy is confirmed, but the company’s specific share of residential work is not documented; these are clearly labeled. The researchers caution that the 91 count is a floor, not a ceiling, since small installers often close without any court case or public announcement. Inclusion in the study is based strictly on public records and is not an allegation of wrongdoing against any company. Full methodology, charts, and a free CSV download are available on the Solar Company Bankruptcy Statistics page.
About SolarPanelExit.com
SolarPanelExit.com publishes guides and public data aimed at homeowners who hold solar contracts. The SolarPanelExit.com Editorial Team compiled the study, which is free to quote with credit and a link. The site earns referral fees when homeowners ask to be matched with solar contract exit companies; no company pays to be included in or excluded from the register. SolarPanelExit.com is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.
Editorial Team
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Why it matters
This data underscores a critical warning for consumers: the solar industry’s turmoil doesn’t erase their financial commitments, and the burden often shifts to servicers or remains with lenders. As the market continues to consolidate and fail, homeowners must scrutinize the financial health of their installer and the terms of their loan to avoid being left with a system they don’t own and a debt they can’t escape.
