The gap nobody closed
When SolarZero was placed into liquidation in December 2024, it left behind approximately 160 redundant staff, thousands of customers locked into contracts for equipment they don’t own, and a regulatory framework that had no clear answer for any of them.
Now, as of May 2026, Utilities Disputes is formally assessing “potential gaps in consumer protection” as complaints about the collapsed solar company continue to accumulate. The independent body is finalising numbers as part of its annual reporting. This is no longer a corporate failure story. It is a systemic failure story.
The subscription energy model – panels and batteries on your roof, no upfront cost, long-term monthly payments – was never cleanly covered by the Electricity Authority’s consumer care rules, the Commerce Commission’s fair trading enforcement, or the standard disputes resolution framework. SolarZero sat in a grey zone between energy retailer and equipment lessor. When it collapsed, customers discovered that nobody had clear jurisdiction over their problem.
$900 million in claims, $40 million owed to workers
The financial wreckage is staggering. By June 2025, Public Trust had made claims of $900 million against SolarZero as the liquidator worked through what it called a “complex state of affairs.” At the point of liquidation, almost $40 million was left owing to workers, tradies and other creditors.
The debt facility behind SolarZero’s operations had been topped up to $365 million, including $145 million from the government’s green bank, New Zealand Green Investment Finance. US asset manager BlackRock had acquired the company outright roughly two years before the collapse, with ambitions to grow from 8,500 customers to more than 100,000. The growth never materialised. Warning signs appeared in April 2024 when the firm laid off around 50 staff and fell well short of customer projections.
Customers trapped with no exit
The human reality is grim. In October 2025, Newsroom identified 26 customers who had stopped paying their bills, most with live disputes cases lodged. Their complaints included unresponsive customer service, inability to retrieve their own contracts, clawback fees for referral incentives, and quotes upwards of $20,000 to buy their systems outright or have them moved.
The structural trap is simple: customers signed up for an energy service, not a financial product. They never owned the equipment. When the provider failed, they had no clear path to exit, no clear path to ownership, and no regulator with an unambiguous mandate to intervene.
The Commerce Commission confirmed in October 2025 that it was in the assessment phase of a preliminary investigation, having received 162 complaints alleging Fair Trading Act breaches. Utilities Disputes had accepted seven complaints against SolarZero over that reporting year – around 6 percent of total accepted retailer complaints, described as “relatively high” for the company’s customer base.
The rules were tightened next door but not here
The Electricity Authority has been strengthening consumer protections in the traditional retail market. Its first annual compliance report on Consumer Care Obligations, published in February 2026, found most power companies following mandatory rules but some gaps remaining. Airihi Mahuika, General Manager Legal, Monitoring and Compliance at the Electricity Authority, said: “While it’s encouraging that most power companies are following the rules, some are not, which demonstrates why it was necessary to make them mandatory.”
But these obligations apply to electricity retailers, not solar subscription companies. FinCap research published in June 2023 had already identified that consumer care guidelines were voluntary and inconsistently applied. The Authority acted on that finding for traditional retailers. The subscription model was left untouched.
What this means for every as-a-service business
In November 2024, Rewiring Aotearoa’s then-CEO Mike Casey argued that SolarZero’s collapse should not dent confidence in solar technology, while acknowledging the model’s structural flaw: “Those customers didn’t own their panels or batteries and, so, didn’t get the full benefit of the technology.”
For any business operating long-term service contracts where the customer never owns the underlying asset – energy-as-a-service, equipment-as-a-service, fleet subscriptions – SolarZero is a live warning. The rules do not clearly cover what happens when the provider fails. That is a risk for providers facing liability uncertainty, for lenders holding security over distributed residential assets that are not straightforward collateral, and for customers with no clear recourse.
The government’s green bank had $145 million in the debt facility. The Crown is simultaneously a significant creditor in the liquidation and the entity responsible for the regulatory framework that failed to protect consumers. That tension remains unresolved. Until regulators formally close the gap that Utilities Disputes has now identified, the subscription energy model carries a risk that no contract can adequately price.
Sources
- Watchdog warns of ‘gaps’ in protection as SolarZero complaints mount (2026-05-01)
- ‘Absolutely screwed’: SolarZero customers stop paying bills as disputes mount (2025-10-15)
- Commerce Commission investigating SolarZero for abandoning customers (2025-10-31)
- Behind SolarZero’s collapse (2024-12)
- Public Trust makes claims of $900m against SolarZero as liquidator updates a complex state of affairs (2025-06-25)
- SolarZero liquidation shouldn’t dent confidence in solar technology (2024-11-27)
- Room for improvement in power companies’ compliance with consumer care rules (2026-02)