Residential solar and storage provider Sunnova has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas, listing its estimated assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion and $50 billion. One of the company’s many subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy last week, and the parent company was added to the list of petitioners this weekend.
Sunnova owes millions to various banks and financial institutions, but many local solar installation companies are also listed as creditors with unsecured claims. It owes some solar installers upward of $75 million. Sunnova works through local installation companies to offer customers solar through third-party ownership (TPO) contracts, and homeowners lease their solar projects from Sunnova.
Sunnova also revealed in SEC documents that it laid off 718 employees (approximately 55% of its workforce) on May 30.
The TPO market has suffered setbacks lately, with fellow residential solar provider SunPower filing bankruptcy last summer and finance provider Mosaic also filing bankruptcy this week. If the current budget bill being debated in Congress is passed, it would prohibit solar leasing companies from collecting the investment tax credit (ITC). Many solar companies operating in the TPO space would be further disadvantaged without the ITC.
