How to Buy Out Your SolarZero System

If you want to buy out the SolarZero gear on your roof after the company's liquidation, the short version is this: there is no longer a tidy "buyout button" to press, so the path runs through the liquidators (Deloitte) or whoever ends up owning your contract, and a fair price is the depreciated value of the remaining hardware, not the inflated "total cost" figure SolarZero may have quoted you years ago. For a typical residential setup installed several years back, the gear itself (panels, inverter, and an ageing battery) is realistically worth somewhere in the region of $3,000 to $8,000 depending on age, battery health, and what's still under warranty. Anyone asking you for the full original system value is not offering you a fair deal.

SolarZero went into liquidation in late 2024, and Deloitte was appointed as liquidator. That left thousands of New Zealand households in an awkward spot: they had solar hardware bolted to their roof that they did not own, tied to a long-term service-and-finance arrangement with a company that no longer trades. Buying the gear outright is, for many people, the cleanest way out. But "clean" only works if you understand what you are actually buying and what it is genuinely worth.

We have pulled together everything we know about the wider situation in our main rundown over here: the SolarZero recovery resource. The piece below is the deep dive specifically on valuing and purchasing the hardware.

First, work out what you actually have

Before you talk price with anyone, you need to know exactly what is on your roof and in your garage. SolarZero installed a range of configurations over the years, and the value of your buyout hinges entirely on the specifics.

Dig out your original SolarZero contract and any installation paperwork. You are looking for:

• Panel make, model, count and wattage (for example, 16 panels at 400W each = a 6.4kW array).
• Inverter brand and model (often a Fronius, Sungrow, or similar).
• Battery brand, model and capacity in kWh, and crucially its installation date.
• Installation date of the whole system, which sets the clock on every warranty and on depreciation.

If you cannot find the paperwork, the inverter and battery usually have a label with the model number on the unit itself. Photograph it. You will need these details for any valuation and for chasing warranty cover later.

Why the hardware is worth far less than you were "told" it cost

Here is the bit the original sales pitch glossed over, and the single most useful thing to understand before you negotiate.

SolarZero's model bundled hardware, installation, monitoring, servicing, financing and a performance guarantee into one monthly payment. When they referenced a "system value" of, say, $25,000 or $30,000, that number included a stack of things that have nothing to do with the physical gear: sales and marketing costs, the cost of money over a 20-year-plus term, ongoing service obligations, and company margin.

The hardware on your roof is a depreciating asset, and it has been depreciating since the day it was installed. Solar panels lose value but degrade slowly in performance (most carry a 25-year performance warranty and lose roughly 0.5% output per year, per typical manufacturer specs). Inverters are usually rated for 10 to 15 years. Batteries are the big one: lithium battery capacity fades meaningfully over time, and a battery installed in 2019 has already used up a chunk of its useful cycle life.

So the fair question is never "what did this cost new?" It is "what is used, partially-depreciated solar hardware worth today, on a roof, with whatever warranty support actually still stands?" Those are very different numbers.

A rough way to value the gear yourself

You can build your own sanity-check figure before anyone quotes you. Work out what the equivalent system would cost to install brand new today, then discount heavily for age and for the fact that it is second-hand and already installed.

As a reference point for "new", a fully installed residential solar system in New Zealand in 2025 runs roughly $1.70 to $2.50 per watt for the panels-and-inverter portion, based on current installer pricing across the market. A 6.4kW array, new, is therefore in the order of $11,000 to $16,000 installed, before any battery.

But you are not buying new, and you are not paying for installation (it is already done). You are buying the residual value of ageing kit. A reasonable framework:

• Panels: depreciate over a 25-year life. A 5-year-old array retains maybe 70 to 80% of its physical value.
• Inverter: depreciate over 12 years or so. A 5-year-old inverter is worth maybe half its replacement cost, and you should budget for replacing it sooner rather than later.
• Battery: the trickiest. Value it on remaining usable capacity and remaining warranty years, not original price. A battery halfway through its warranted life is worth far less than half its new price, because the back half of a battery's life is the worst-performing half.

Run those numbers and most older SolarZero residential setups land in that $3,000 to $8,000 band for the physical hardware. A near-new system installed shortly before the liquidation could be higher; a 2018-era system with a tired battery could be lower. If you want to pressure-test the new-versus-buyout maths properly, our solar cost and ROI calculator lets you model what a fresh system would actually return on your roof, which is a useful comparison point.

Who to contact now that SolarZero has been liquidated

This is where it gets genuinely messy, and where you need to be patient and methodical.

When a company goes into liquidation, its assets (including, potentially, the hardware on your roof and the contracts attached to it) become part of the liquidation. The liquidator's job, under the Companies Act administered through the courts and reported to the Companies Office, is to recover value for creditors. That means the gear on your roof is, in a legal sense, an asset someone is trying to extract money from.

Your contact points, in order:

• The liquidator (Deloitte). Deloitte has published liquidator reports on the Companies Office register, and these contain the contact details and the current status of the process. Always start with the most recent report.
• Any party that has acquired the SolarZero loan book or contracts. In some liquidations, customer contracts are sold on to another company. If that has happened, the new owner becomes the party you negotiate your buyout with, not Deloitte directly. Watch the liquidator updates for news of any sale.
• Your finance provider, if your arrangement was funded through a third-party lender. Some SolarZero arrangements involved separate financing. Check your paperwork for any lender name that is not SolarZero itself.

Put every request in writing (email), keep a dated record of every call, and ask for any offer or settlement in writing before you pay a cent. If your situation involves disputed charges or a contract that does not stack up, you have real protections, and we walk through those in detail over here: SolarZero billing disputes and your rights under the Fair Trading Act.

The quirk most people miss: leverage runs in your favour

Here is something the situation hands you that you should not waste. A liquidator's goal is to turn assets into cash with minimal cost and hassle. Solar hardware that is already bolted to a stranger's roof is one of the worst assets imaginable to recover.

Think about it from their side. To realise value any other way, someone would have to send an electrician to your house, safely disconnect a live system, remove panels without damaging your roof, make the roof watertight again, transport second-hand gear, and then try to sell used equipment with uncertain warranty support. The cost of doing that frequently exceeds what the gear would fetch. In practice, a willing buyer who is already living under the panels (you) is the cheapest, easiest outcome for the liquidator.

That is real negotiating leverage. You are not at the mercy of a "system value" number on an old contract. You are the most convenient buyer for an asset that is expensive for anyone else to recover. A fair price reflects that reality, not the original retail figure.

What a fair buyout actually looks like

Pulling it together, a fair buyout has these features:

• Priced on depreciated hardware value, not original "system cost" and not the sum of remaining monthly payments.
• Clean transfer of ownership in writing. You want a document confirming you now own the physical equipment outright, with no residual claim, no ongoing service obligation, and no remaining finance.
• Clarity on what happens to any warranties. More on this below, because it is the catch.
• No "exit fees", "buyout administration fees" or penalty loadings beyond a reasonable settlement figure. Question anything that looks like a penalty for ending a contract with a company that no longer trades.

If an offer lands well above your own depreciated-value estimate, push back with your workings. You are entitled to ask how the number was reached.

The warranty trap you must check before paying

This is the part that catches people out, and it can change whether a buyout is worth it at all.

SolarZero's service offering wrapped manufacturer warranties inside a SolarZero performance guarantee. With SolarZero gone, that performance guarantee is effectively worthless. The question that matters is whether the underlying manufacturer warranties on the panels, inverter and battery are still live and still claimable directly through the manufacturer or its NZ distributor.

Manufacturer warranties usually attach to the product and the installation date, not to SolarZero specifically, which is good news. But there are landmines:

• Some warranties require the original installing company to make the claim, or require proof of ongoing servicing that SolarZero was supposed to perform.
• Some require registration that may or may not have been completed.
• If the manufacturer or its NZ distributor has also exited the market, the warranty may be unsupported regardless of paperwork.

Before you pay for a buyout, find out, in writing, which warranties survive and how you would actually make a claim. A system with dead warranty support is worth less, and you should factor that into your offer. We go through who carries the can for servicing now in detail over here: SolarZero warranty and servicing and who is responsible now.

A worked example

Take a real-feeling scenario. A 1990s brick-and-tile home in Rolleston, on the Orion network, had SolarZero install a 6kW array, a Fronius inverter and a 10kWh battery in early 2020. The original contract referenced a "system value" of around $28,000.

Valuing it today, roughly five years on:

• Panels (6kW): new-equivalent panel-and-mounting value around $7,000 to $9,000; at five years of a 25-year life, residual value roughly $5,500 to $7,000.
• Inverter: new around $2,500 to $3,500; five years into a ~12-year life, residual value roughly $1,500, and you should expect to replace it within the next 5 to 8 years.
• Battery (10kWh): the swing factor. New today around $9,000 to $13,000 installed, but a five-year-old battery has used a meaningful slice of its cycle life. Residual value realistically $2,000 to $4,000 depending on measured state of health.

Add the residuals and you are looking at something in the order of $9,000 to $12,500 as a generous gross figure, before discounting for the second-hand nature of the gear, uncertain warranty support, and the fact that the liquidator's alternative (removing it) is expensive and unattractive. A genuinely fair settlement here is likely well under the gross number, not the $28,000 on the old contract.

Now the honest comparison: for similar money to a battery-heavy buyout, you could in some cases install a brand-new system with a full fresh warranty stack. That is exactly why you should not buy out blind. Run the buyout figure against the cost of new before you commit.

When a buyout is not the right move

Buying out is not automatically the best answer, and we would be doing you a disservice to pretend it is.

• If the battery is the bulk of the value and it is tired, you may be paying real money for a component nearing the end of its useful life with no warranty behind it. Sometimes keeping the panels and inverter and walking away from the battery is the smarter split, if the seller will agree to it.
• If you are planning to sell the house soon, the value an owned solar system adds at sale is not always large enough to justify the buyout outlay. Think about your timeframe.
• If the warranties are dead and the gear is old, you are buying an unsupported, ageing system. A fresh install with modern panels, a current-generation inverter and a full warranty might serve you far better for not a lot more.
• If the asking price is anchored to the old "system value," walk away from that number entirely and negotiate from depreciated hardware value, or get fresh quotes and compare.

It genuinely is worth getting a couple of current quotes for a new system so you have a real benchmark in hand. We can line up three quotes from installers we have vetted ourselves over here: get three free solar quotes. Even if you end up buying out the existing gear, those numbers tell you whether the buyout price is fair.

Your step-by-step plan

1. Document your system: panel count and wattage, inverter model, battery model and capacity, and the install date.
2. Build your own depreciated-value estimate using the framework above so you walk in with a number.
3. Find the latest liquidator report on the Companies Office register and identify exactly who you now deal with.
4. Confirm in writing which manufacturer warranties survive and how you would claim on them.
5. Request a written buyout offer with the price basis explained.
6. Benchmark against new: get current quotes and run the ROI maths.
7. Negotiate from depreciated value, push back on any old "system value" anchor and any penalty-style fees.
8. Get clean ownership transfer in writing before paying, with no residual obligations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who do I contact to buy out my SolarZero system now?

Start with the liquidator, Deloitte, whose reports and contact details are published on the Companies Office register. If the customer contracts or loan book have been sold to another party, that new owner becomes who you negotiate with. Always work from the most recent liquidator update, as the situation can change.

How much should I pay to buy out the gear?

Pay for the depreciated value of the physical hardware, not the original "system value" on your old contract. For most older residential setups that lands roughly in the $3,000 to $8,000 range, depending on the age of the panels and inverter and, most importantly, the health and remaining warranty of the battery. Build your own estimate and negotiate from there.

Why is the buyout figure so much lower than the system value SolarZero quoted?

Because that original figure bundled in financing costs, servicing, monitoring, marketing and margin over a 20-year-plus term. The hardware itself is a depreciating asset that has been losing value since installation. You are buying used equipment, not a brand-new bundled service, so the fair number is far lower.

Do my warranties still work after the liquidation?

Possibly. Manufacturer warranties usually attach to the product and install date rather than to SolarZero, so they can survive. But some require the original installer to lodge claims or proof of servicing, and some manufacturers may have exited the NZ market. Confirm in writing which warranties are still claimable before you pay.

Can I negotiate the price?

Yes, and you have more leverage than you might think. Removing solar gear from your roof is expensive and unattractive for a liquidator, which makes you the cheapest buyer available. Come with your own depreciated-value workings, push back on any old "system value" anchor, and question any penalty-style exit fees.

Is it cheaper to buy out the old system or install new?

It depends entirely on the age of your gear and whether warranties survive. If the battery is tired and unsupported, a fresh install with a full warranty stack can be the better long-term value for not much more money. Always get current quotes and run the maths before committing to a buyout.

What happens if I just do nothing?

That is risky. Ownership of the gear and any ongoing obligations sit in a legal grey zone during liquidation, and you want certainty about who owns the equipment on your roof and who is liable for it. Get written clarity on your position rather than leaving it unresolved.

Should I get the battery's state of health checked before buying out?

Absolutely, especially if the battery makes up most of the value. A qualified solar electrician or the battery's NZ distributor may be able to report on remaining usable capacity. A battery well into its cycle life is worth a fraction of its original price, and you should price your offer accordingly.

The bottom line

Buying out your SolarZero hardware can be a sensible, clean way to take full ownership and move on, but only if you pay for what the gear is genuinely worth today rather than what you were once told it cost. Value the hardware on its depreciated, second-hand, on-the-roof reality, confirm which warranties actually survive, and remember that you are the most convenient buyer for an asset that is a headache for anyone else to recover.

If you have not yet read the wider rundown of options, start with the SolarZero recovery resource, and if you are weighing a buyout against starting fresh, get a couple of honest quotes so you are deciding with real numbers in front of you. Either way, go in informed and ask for everything in writing.