Sunnova Filed for Bankruptcy — Here's What Florida Solar Homeowners Should Do Right Now

If you bought or financed your solar system through Sunnova Energy, you may have already noticed something feels off. Maybe the monitoring app stopped updating. Maybe you got a vague email. Maybe a neighbor mentioned something. Whatever tipped you off, here's the short version: Sunnova Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2025, and thousands of Florida homeowners are now in the same position — solar panels on the roof, no one watching them.

This article will walk you through exactly what happened, what it means for your system, and what steps to take right now to make sure your solar investment is still working for you.

What Happened to Sunnova?

Sunnova Energy International was one of the largest residential solar and energy service companies in the United States, managing monitoring contracts for homeowners across the country. In June 2025, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after years of aggressive expansion, rising debt costs, and a market that tightened faster than its balance sheet could handle.

Chapter 11 is a reorganization bankruptcy — it doesn't necessarily mean the company disappears overnight. But for most Sunnova customers, it means one thing practically: the infrastructure supporting your monitoring contract is either operating in a degraded state, being wound down, or has already stopped functioning. Customer service lines have gone dark for many. Monitoring app logins are failing. Emails to support accounts are bouncing.

For Florida homeowners specifically, Sunnova had a significant presence — particularly in Central Florida, the Tampa Bay corridor, and South Florida markets. If your system was installed between 2018 and 2024 and Sunnova was mentioned anywhere in your paperwork, there is a real chance your monitoring is now orphaned.

What Does "Out of Business" Mean for Your Solar Panels?

Here's the critical distinction most homeowners don't know: your solar panels themselves are not affected by Sunnova going out of business. The panels, inverter, and racking are physical equipment on your roof. They don't care who filed for bankruptcy. They will continue generating power as long as nothing is broken.

What Sunnova actually sold you was a monitoring and maintenance contract — a service layer on top of your system. That service layer is what's now gone or going.

What you've lost (or are losing):

• Active monitoring: No one is watching your system for faults, production drops, or inverter errors. A system can underperform for months before a homeowner notices — and those months translate directly to higher electric bills and a shorter equipment lifespan.
• Warranty advocacy: If your inverter fails and you have an active manufacturer warranty, Sunnova was supposed to file the claim and coordinate service. That backstop is now gone.
• Performance alerts: If a string of panels goes offline after a storm or squirrel damage, the alert that was supposed to notify you won't come.

The panels are still there. The monitoring is not. That distinction matters a lot over a 25-year system lifespan.

How to Check Whether Your System Is Still Being Monitored

The fastest way to know your status is to log into your monitoring app — if it's still accessible. Your monitoring platform depends on who manufactured your inverter, not who provided your contract. Here's how to identify which platform you're on:

• Enphase inverter: Your app is Enphase Enlighten (enlighten.enphaseenergy.com). If you can log in and see live production data, the app is still active. However, if Sunnova was your "system owner" in the Enphase portal, alerts and professional monitoring may have already dropped off even if the dashboard appears to work.
• SolarEdge inverter: Your app is mySolarEdge. Same caveat applies — the inverter's own reporting may still show data, but third-party monitoring services connected through Sunnova will be disconnected.
• SMA inverter: Log into SMA Sunny Portal. You may still have basic visibility, but fleet-level monitoring under a Sunnova account will be severed.

If you don't know which inverter you have, check your electrical panel or the inverter box itself — it's usually mounted on an exterior wall near your main panel. The brand is printed on the unit.

Regardless of whether your app still shows numbers, no app access is not the same as being professionally monitored. A homeowner logging in once a week is not the same as a monitoring service watching your system 24/7 and flagging anomalies against expected production baselines.

What Florida's Heat Actually Costs You When No One Is Watching

Florida averages 233 sunny days per year. That's a lot of production potential — and a lot of potential to miss problems quietly. A single failed microinverter on an Enphase system can cut your production by 5 to 10 percent per panel. A shaded or soiled string on a SolarEdge system can drag down every panel connected to it. These aren't dramatic failures — no sparks, no alarms. They just quietly bleed kilowatt-hours while your Duke Energy or OUC bill climbs.

In Central Florida, the average residential solar system produces between 900 and 1,100 kWh per month depending on system size, orientation, and season. A 10 percent production loss equals roughly 100 kWh monthly — at OUC's blended rate, that's around $12 to $15 per month in lost generation, every month, until someone catches it. Over a year, that's $144 to $180 in electricity you paid for that your system should have produced for free.

Monitoring exists to catch these losses within days, not months. Without it, small problems compound into expensive ones.

Your Options as a Former Sunnova Customer

You have three realistic paths forward:

Option 1: DIY monitoring via your inverter app

If you can still access your Enphase Enlighten or mySolarEdge account, you'll have basic production visibility. This requires you to log in regularly, understand what normal production looks like for your system, and notice when it drops. It's better than nothing — but it puts the burden entirely on you, and most homeowners realistically check their app once a month at best. Fault alerts require professional threshold monitoring, which the free consumer apps do not provide.

Option 2: Contact your inverter manufacturer directly

Enphase, SolarEdge, and SMA all offer monitoring subscriptions separate from the installer or service company. This is worth exploring. However, these subscriptions primarily provide data access — they are not the same as having a local service company who can dispatch a technician when something's wrong. You'll still need someone in your area who can physically service the system.

Option 3: Transfer your monitoring to a local solar service company

This is the most complete solution. A Florida-based solar service company can take over your monitoring account, set professional performance thresholds, provide fault alerts, and — critically — send someone to your roof when something needs hands-on attention. This is what Sunnova was supposed to provide. The difference is you'd be working with a company that's actually in your market, not a national firm operating at a distance.

How Solarama's Monitoring Takeover Works

Solarama is a Central Florida solar care company — not an installer chasing new-build commissions. The business model is built around servicing existing systems: systems whose installers walked away, companies that went under, and homeowners who fell through the cracks. Sunnova customers are exactly who Solarama exists to serve.

The Monitoring Takeover service works like this:

• Remote Monitoring Takeover — $150 for 12 months: Solarama connects your system to professional monitoring software, establishes production baselines, and watches for faults and underperformance. You get fault alerts and a quarterly production summary. No site visit required — this is done remotely using your existing inverter's API.
• Monitoring + Setup Visit — $450: Everything in the Remote Takeover, plus a licensed technician visits your home to inspect the full system — panels, wiring, inverter, and racking. Any issues found are documented and quoted for repair. Recommended if your system hasn't been inspected since the Sunnova contract started.

With every service, Solarama includes a free utility bill audit — a review of your recent Duke Energy or OUC statements to verify that your solar production is actually reducing your bill the way it should. Many Sunnova customers are surprised to learn their net metering credits haven't been calculating correctly for months.

Solarama is licensed under Florida license CVC57175, open seven days a week, and serves Orange, Lake, Seminole, and Polk counties.

Don't Wait on This

The instinct is to wait and see — maybe Sunnova gets reorganized, maybe someone buys the monitoring portfolio, maybe the app starts working again. That's possible. But while you wait, your system is unmonitored, and Florida's summer storm season is approaching. If a panel takes impact damage, a squirrel chews through a wire in your junction box, or your inverter starts throttling output due to a firmware bug, no one will catch it.

Getting a replacement monitoring plan in place takes less than 24 hours remotely. There's no disruption to your system and no hardware to install. You're simply transferring the professional oversight of your system from a company that no longer exists to one that does.

If you're a Sunnova customer in Central Florida and you're not sure what the status of your system is, the first step is a remote system check. Solarama offers a $50 Remote System Check that pulls your inverter data, assesses production against expected output, and tells you exactly where things stand — before you commit to anything else.

Call 407-900-6055 or visit solarama.us/solar-monitoring to learn more about the Monitoring Takeover service. You can also schedule online at solarama.us/book — seven days a week, no waiting on hold.

Your solar system is still on your roof. Make sure someone is still watching it.

Solarama LLC serves Orange, Lake, Seminole, and Polk counties in Central Florida. License CVC57175. Questions? Email support@solarama.us or call 407-900-6055.