BlackRock's $110M solar subscriber SolarZero liquidated owing $40M

SolarZero sold households solar systems with no money upfront - a quoted $177 per month for 12 to 14 panels over a 25-year term with a free battery upgrade. In mid-2022 BlackRock bought it from its Kiwi owners - founder Andrew Booth, Pencarrow and Stephen Tindall's K1W1 - for $110 million, then put in $147.8 million more amid ongoing losses. SolarZero also drew $115 million of a $145 million NZGIF facility, and the securitisation vehicles raised another $90 million in 2023 and $130 million in 2024 offshore.

On November 27, 2024 the company went into liquidation owing at least $40 million to 700+ creditors. Some 173 staff were owed $4.9 million in holiday and notice pay - partly capped at $31,820 per employee - and trade creditors $4.1 million. Recoverable assets were modest: about $3.6 million in panel stock and $22,275 cash, and it was unclear unsecured creditors would be paid. The liquidators were also probing the securitisation setup customers had been reassured would protect them; their report said SolarZero had underwritten it, 'resulting in unsustainable regular payments to the SPVs'.

NZGIF said BlackRock's 'sudden change in stance' caught the green bank, other lenders and even SolarZero's CEO off guard, with no indication before early November that owner support had been withdrawn. Ex-staff protested outside BlackRock's Auckland office. The panel price crash, pinned partly on Chinese over-production, meant a household could buy its own system outright for less than the 25-year subscription.

The 25-year pay-monthly model only beat ownership while panels were expensive; Chinese over-production crashed panel prices and gutted the model's pitch.

SolarZero underwrote its own securitisation vehicles, creating what liquidators called 'unsustainable regular payments' to the SPVs.

Losses ran so deep the owner kept injecting capital - $147.8 million on top of the $110 million purchase - before abruptly withdrawing support.

The government green bank's largest exposures sat in this one business model via a $145 million credit line, drawn down $115 million.

Subscription economics die when the asset's price collapses: if customers can buy the product outright for less, 25-year contracts turn into liabilities.

Liquidators received expressions of interest to buy all or part of the business and kept an interested-parties register, noting the virtual power plant platform might draw buyers. About 15,500 customers' contracts were mostly securitised into two special-purpose vehicles placed under Public Trust control shortly before liquidation. NZGIF's shareholding ministers pressed for answers; its chief said it had lent on the receivables, not to SolarZero itself, and the collapse risked making the whole solar sector a political target.