SolarZero Warranty and Servicing: Who Is Responsible Now?

If you have a SolarZero system on your roof and you're wondering who actually honours your warranty and turns up when something breaks, here's the short version: your contract and the equipment on your roof are now held within a separate legal entity (a special purpose vehicle, or SPV) overseen by the Public Trust as part of the receivership process that began when SolarZero went into liquidation in November 2024. The receivers, Deloitte, confirmed they intended to keep servicing operational while a buyer was sought. In practice that means your day-to-day faults still go through a servicing operation, but the company you originally signed with no longer exists in the form it did. Knowing exactly who to call, and what your rights are, matters more now than it ever did.

Why this got complicated, in plain English

SolarZero ran a subscription model rather than selling you a system outright. You didn't own the panels and battery; you paid a monthly fee to use them, and SolarZero retained ownership and the responsibility to maintain everything for the life of the agreement, typically 20 to 25 years.

That model only works if the company stays solvent for two decades. In November 2024, SolarZero's parent went into liquidation, and receivers were appointed. Suddenly tens of thousands of households across Aotearoa were left holding a contract with a company that was, functionally, gone.

Here's the part most people find genuinely confusing, so let's slow down and explain it properly.

What the SPV and Public Trust structure actually means

When SolarZero financed all those systems, it didn't pay for them out of its own back pocket. It raised money from investors, and to do that it placed the customer contracts and the rights attached to them into a special purpose vehicle.

Think of an SPV as a ring-fenced box. It exists for one job: to hold a defined set of assets (in this case, your subscription contracts and the income from them) separately from the trading company. The point of ring-fencing is that if the trading company falls over, the assets in the box don't simply vanish into the general liquidation. They sit apart, protected for the investors who funded them.

The Public Trust acts in a supervisory and trustee-style role over that structure. Public Trust is a Crown entity that has acted as a corporate trustee and supervisor for various financing arrangements in New Zealand for a long time. Its presence is part of why the contracts didn't simply evaporate the day the company failed.

So, in plain terms:

• The trading company (the one that sold you the subscription) went into receivership and liquidation.
• Your contract sits inside the SPV, ring-fenced from that collapse.
• Public Trust supervises the structure holding those contracts.
• The receivers (Deloitte) were appointed to run things, keep servicing going, and find a buyer for the customer book.

The reason this matters to you: your monthly payments are still owed to someone, and your right to have the gear maintained still exists. The obligation didn't disappear. It moved.

The thing nobody explains: your warranty was never just one warranty

This is where households get caught out, so read this twice.

Under the SolarZero model you actually sat behind two completely different layers of protection, and only one of them was ever at risk when the company failed.

Layer one: the manufacturer's warranty

The physical panels and battery were made by manufacturers who issue their own product warranties, completely independent of SolarZero. A solar panel typically carries a product warranty of 10 to 15 years and a separate performance warranty of around 25 years. Lithium batteries usually carry a manufacturer warranty in the order of 10 years.

These warranties are issued by the manufacturer, not by SolarZero. The catch is that manufacturer warranties almost always require an authorised installer or accredited service agent to make the claim and do the work. You generally can't ring the factory in another country yourself and get a panel swapped.

Layer two: the service obligation SolarZero promised

The second layer was SolarZero's own promise to maintain, monitor, and replace gear over the life of your subscription at no extra cost. That promise lived with the trading company, and that's the layer that became uncertain when it failed.

The genuinely useful insight here: even in the worst case, the hardware on your roof did not lose its manufacturer warranty just because SolarZero collapsed. The product is still the product. What changed is who arranges the claim and who pays for the labour and call-out. That distinction is the single most important thing to understand, and it's the part that gets lost in the panic.

What to actually do if your battery or panels fail

Don't climb on the roof, and don't start pulling wiring. Solar systems carry DC voltages that can seriously hurt you, and any tampering can void the very warranty you're trying to claim. Work through this in order.

1. Confirm it's actually a fault

Solar output drops in winter and on cloudy days, and that's normal physics, not a fault. Northland and Nelson get markedly more sun hours than the West Coast or Southland, per NIWA solar radiation data, so a quiet winter month in Invercargill isn't a failure. A genuine fault usually shows as a blank or error-flagging inverter display, a battery that won't charge or discharge at all, or your monitoring app showing zero generation on a clear day.

2. Find your contract and your equipment details

Dig out your original subscription agreement and any handover documents. You're looking for the make and model of your panels, inverter and battery, your system commissioning date, and the contact details for service that were current when you signed. Take photos of the inverter and battery labels while you're at it.

3. Contact the current servicing operation first

Use the support and servicing contact details issued after the receivership, not necessarily the old SolarZero number on your original paperwork. The receivers committed to keeping servicing running and to communicating with customers. We keep a running rundown of where things stand and who to contact over here: the SolarZero recovery rundown. Start there if you're not sure who currently holds the servicing function.

4. Log everything in writing

Phone calls are easy to forget and impossible to prove. Put your fault report in an email or message, note the date, describe the symptom plainly, and keep every reply. If this ever escalates to a dispute, a clean paper trail is worth its weight in gold.

5. If servicing stalls, escalate properly

If you can't get a response, or you're being told the fault isn't covered when you believe it is, you have rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act, both of which are enforced with help from the Commerce Commission and explained clearly by Consumer NZ. The Consumer Guarantees Act requires goods and services to be of acceptable quality and fit for purpose, and those guarantees can follow the equipment even through a change of ownership in some circumstances. We walk through how to use those rights, especially around billing and charges, over here: SolarZero billing disputes and your rights.

A worked example: a Christchurch household with a dead battery

Picture a 2010s-build home in Halswell, on the Orion network, with a SolarZero subscription and a battery that suddenly stops charging in the middle of a cold Canterbury snap. Here's how the layers play out.

• The battery is four years old. A typical lithium battery warranty runs around 10 years, so on the face of it the unit is still within the manufacturer's product warranty window.
• The household reports the fault to the current servicing operation in writing and keeps the reference.
• If servicing is operating normally, the call-out, diagnosis and any warranty replacement should be arranged for them at no charge, because the service obligation was meant to cover exactly this.
• If servicing is slow or disputes coverage, the household leans on the Consumer Guarantees Act: the battery has plainly failed well short of a reasonable lifespan, and that's a strong position to argue from.

The point of the example is to show that the maths and the rights still work in the homeowner's favour far more often than the headlines suggest. A failed battery inside its warranty window is a fixable problem, not a write-off.

Where this genuinely doesn't go your way

We're not going to pretend every scenario is rosy. Be clear-eyed about the harder cases.

• If a fault falls outside the manufacturer warranty period and the service obligation can't be enforced, you may face a real cost to repair or replace gear you don't actually own. That's the uncomfortable edge of a subscription model when the provider fails.
• If you tamper with the system yourself, you risk voiding the manufacturer warranty entirely. Leave the hardware alone.
• If you stop paying your subscription out of frustration, get advice first. The payment obligation generally still exists within the SPV structure, and simply withholding payment can create a separate problem on top of the one you're trying to solve.

Honesty matters here: nobody can promise you that a 20-year subscription will be serviced flawlessly for two decades by a company that no longer exists in its original form. What we can tell you is that your hardware warranties are real, your consumer-law rights are real, and the structure was deliberately built so the contracts didn't simply disappear.

Should you think about buying your system out?

For some households, the cleanest way out of the uncertainty is to take ownership of the gear outright, if a buy-out is offered. Owning the system means you deal directly with manufacturers and your chosen local installer for any future faults, with no middle layer that can fail.

Whether that pencils out depends entirely on the price offered, the age and condition of your equipment, and how much life the panels and battery have left. We go through the numbers and the questions to ask properly over here: how to buy out your SolarZero system. If you want to sanity-check whether buying out (or starting fresh) is worth it against what a new system would cost and save, our solar cost and payback calculator is a good place to run your own numbers.

How to protect yourself from here

Whatever happens with the receivership, a few habits will keep you in the strongest possible position.

• Keep a folder (digital is fine) with your contract, equipment models, commissioning date, and every piece of correspondence.
• Check your monitoring monthly, so you catch a genuine fault early rather than discovering it a year later when a warranty claim is harder to make.
• Photograph your inverter and battery labels now, while you can read them, so model and serial numbers are on hand for any claim.
• Report faults in writing and keep references every single time.
• Know your fallback: the Consumer Guarantees Act and Fair Trading Act, with Consumer NZ and the Commerce Commission behind them, are your backstop if servicing fails you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who do I call now if my SolarZero system breaks?

Use the servicing contact details issued after the receivership rather than assuming the old number still works. The receivers, Deloitte, committed to keeping servicing operational. If you're unsure who currently holds the function, start with the recovery rundown linked above and confirm the current contact before logging your fault in writing.

Did my warranty disappear when SolarZero collapsed?

No. The manufacturer warranties on your panels (often 10 to 15 years product, around 25 years performance) and your battery (commonly around 10 years) are issued by the manufacturers and are independent of SolarZero. What became uncertain was SolarZero's own promise to arrange and pay for servicing, not the underlying hardware warranties.

What is the SPV and why does it matter to me?

A special purpose vehicle is a ring-fenced legal entity that was set up to hold the customer contracts separately from the trading company. Because your contract sits inside that protected structure rather than in the failed company, the obligations attached to it didn't simply vanish when the company went under.

What does the Public Trust have to do with my contract?

Public Trust is a Crown entity that acts in a trustee and supervisory role over the financing structure holding the contracts. Its involvement is part of why the customer agreements were protected rather than caught up entirely in the liquidation of the trading business.

Should I keep paying my monthly subscription?

Generally the payment obligation still exists within the SPV structure, so stopping payments without advice can create a fresh problem. If you're considering withholding payment because of a service failure or a billing dispute, get proper advice first and document your reasons in writing.

Can I just buy the system and own it outright?

In some cases a buy-out may be available, which removes the middle layer and lets you deal directly with manufacturers and a local installer. Whether it's worth it depends on the price offered and how much life your equipment has left. Run the numbers carefully before committing.

What if servicing refuses to fix a fault I think is covered?

Put your position in writing, cite the symptom and the equipment age, and lean on the Consumer Guarantees Act, which requires goods to be of acceptable quality and to last a reasonable time. Consumer NZ explains how to use these rights, and the Commerce Commission enforces the Fair Trading Act if a business misleads you.

Is low winter output a fault I should report?

Usually not. Solar generation naturally falls in winter and on cloudy days, and regions differ a lot, with NIWA data showing the upper North Island and Nelson getting far more sun than the West Coast or the deep south. A genuine fault looks like zero generation on a clear day or an inverter showing errors, not simply a quieter winter month.

The bottom line

The structure sounds intimidating, but the practical reality is calmer than the headlines. Your hardware warranties survived. Your consumer-law rights survived. The contracts were deliberately ring-fenced inside an SPV supervised by Public Trust so they wouldn't disappear with the company, and the receivers committed to keeping servicing running while the customer book finds a home.

Your job is to stay organised: keep your paperwork, report faults in writing, and know that the Consumer Guarantees Act sits behind you. If you'd like the full running picture of where the recovery stands, we keep it current over here: the SolarZero recovery rundown. And if all this has you weighing up taking ownership instead, the buy-out walkthrough is the next thing worth reading.

What to do next

If you're staring at a dead inverter or a battery that won't charge right now, do these three things today and you'll be in good shape:

• Confirm it's a genuine fault (zero generation on a clear day or an inverter throwing errors), not just a quiet winter.
• Photograph your equipment labels and dig out your contract so you have models, serial numbers and your commissioning date ready.
• Report the fault in writing to the current servicing contact, keep the reference, and check the SolarZero recovery rundown if you're not sure who that is.

If servicing stalls, you've still got the Consumer Guarantees Act and the Commerce Commission behind you. And if you'd rather step off the subscription entirely, read the buy-out walkthrough and run your numbers through the solar cost and payback calculator before you decide anything. Stay organised, keep everything in writing, and you'll navigate this far better than the panic out there suggests.