To the surprise and consternation of many homeowners, Renova Energy filed for bankruptcy on March 20, 2026.
Vincent Battaglia, the founder and founder CEO of the longtime local solar provider, cited the August 2024 bankruptcy of SunPower, one of its major investors and residential solar-lease providers, as the primary reason.
“SunPower was a company that I supported for 15 years,” said Battaglia during a recent interview. “They invested in Renova in 2021-’22, and they were our partner—and then they went bankrupt in (August) of ’24. We knew in June; they were signaling they were not going to be able to pay us. We were using their money for leases and financing, and they weren’t able to pay us anymore.”
That led directly to the shuttering of Renova earlier this year. Customers who had SunPower lease agreements through Renova were told their maintenance agreements would be serviced by SunStrong Management, which acquired their accounts during the SunPower asset-dissolution process. Customers who bought their systems outright, or had other lease arrangements, had to find another solar-maintenance provider.
Hot Purple Energy (HPE), another well-known local solar panel and battery installer, added a good number of those customers. Despite that new business for HPE, CEO and founder Nate Otto believes Renova’s bankruptcy hurt solar-system sales in the area, at least temporarily.
“People thought that Renova was such a large and solid company, and if (bankruptcy) could happen to them, it could happen to anybody,” Otto said during a recent interview. “I would argue that they were too big of a company for their own good, quite honestly. This is just my gut (reaction); I have no information about this. But I am a contractor, and I was brought up with contractors. … It isn’t a hard model to figure out, but a lot of the solar companies—and I believe Renova might have fallen (into this category)—didn’t see themselves as a home-improvement company, or even a contractor. They saw themselves more as a tech company, and they sort of had this dot-com mentality.”
Battaglia now has a new company, Mycrogrid. Battaglia actually formed Mycrogrid in 2014 as a holding company, but its launch as a solar installation and maintenance provider—focuses on decentralized, micro-solar systems—just happened, on June 1. While Renova had several hundred employees, the new company is much smaller.
“At the moment, we have 19” former Renova employees, said Battaglia. “We’re just starting off, and by August, we should be back up to 50 people. So the company is already growing back, and it will be heavier again.”
Battaglia said local opportunities for solar-industry employees today are limited.
“(Former Renova employees) all want to come back. There is no place for them to go,” Battaglia said. “A company that turned into an air conditioning company that doesn’t do solar anymore can’t hire them. Nate Otto (of HPE), who’s a wonderful human being, just doesn’t have any more capacity to take people. So, not a week goes by where our current leadership team doesn’t hear from someone saying, ‘I’m ready; when can you take me back?’
“I’m not going to run so fast that we trip. It needs to be a steady growth. … Priority one for me is to bring back the staff that was here at Renova, because they were very loyal, and they worked their tails off for years and years. … By mid-2027, we should be fully staffed (with) 30 people occupying the building, and 70 out in the field.”
Over at HPE, Otto confirmed that some former Renova Solar workers had joined his team, but that large-scale hiring was not in his company’s immediate future.
“We certainly try to pick up anybody good when we get an opportunity,” Otto said. “We’re at a good size. We’re the company that isn’t trying to grow to great lengths. We have picked up a few of their employees, and it’s a shame that they lost their jobs. But we didn’t really need that many.”
An Industry in Flux
To say that the solar-power industry is in the midst of change would be an understatement.
The technology for residential and small commercial solar power microgrid solutions has reached a critical proof-of-concept stage that is starting to enable some homeowners to “cut the cord” from public utilities—which have arguably never been more unpopular, due to rising costs, aging infrastructure and liability for deadly wildfires.
Meanwhile, recent changes in state and federal policies have reduced incentives for residents to invest in traditional solar. For all these reasons, Battaglia is focusing on microgrid systems, which could independently service a home or business.
“A microgrid is a combination of solar and batteries, coupled together in a non-export mode, so that none of the energy generated by the solar leaves the home,” Battaglia said. “It stays in the battery, or it powers the home. … There is no relationship between the home’s microgrid and the utility, (except) that the utility is used as backup.”
Battaglia said he’s a fan of the power grid—but that for some customers, it could become obsolete.
“Some 130 years ago … we didn’t have battery storage at that time. We didn’t have technology that could do all the things that a centralized grid would do,” he said. “So, (the utilities) got us through. It created economies. It was the most efficient way for us to generate electricity, and then to deliver it, so that the national economy could grow. But now the inflection is toward technology that will allow us to individualize that same exact premise, but on a decentralized model. Now, every home can generate, control and maintain its own electrical use, and it doesn’t require having to make the larger (public) grid more efficient. That’s what (Renova) was doing when I was adding solar for years—I was helping the grid out.”
The traditional rooftop-solar model has faced challenges as a result of recent state and federal decisions. In 2022, the California Public Utilities Commission decided to end the “Net Energy Metering 2.0” rules governing compensation to individual solar producers who were utilizing the public grid to store excess energy produced. The new NEM 3.0, or Net Billing Tariff (NBT) rules, cut the price paid by the utilities for customer-generated power by approximately 75%-80%. After years of lawsuits, a California Appeals Court upheld the new NBT standards in March; on June 10, the California Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.
On the federal level: Last year, the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” ended the 30% federal tax credit for home solar installation costs which had been established by 2022 Inflation Reduction Act; that credit had originally been slated to continue through 2034. Some tax credits for solar-installation loans are still available for commercial entities, and new loan opportunities are available for homeowners—but those will likely be phased out at some point.
Otto said people in the solar industry knew these subsidies and credits wouldn’t last forever—but losing them still hurt.
“The industry has certainly been impacted by the 30% tax credit going away—and that was on the heels of the CPUC ruling a year and a half prior, regarding how the net metering works,” he said. “NEM 3.0 was the coffin, and the tax credit was some nails. That really hurt. Instead of basically getting credit for a kilowatt that you send back to the grid (under NEM 2.0), you get like a quarter of a credit when you take electricity back from the grid, if you need it. So, that reduced the value of any excess solar that your system produces by 75%.”
Terrie Prosper is the director of strategic communications for the External Affairs Division of the CPUC. In a recent email exchange with the Independent, Prosper defended the Net Billing Tariff (NBT).
“Overly high NEM 2.0 compensation in midday hours meant batteries didn’t pay for themselves over time, so almost all excess rooftop solar was sent back during the day to the grid when Californians need it least,” Prosper wrote. “… The NBT reduces costs and (greenhouse gas) emissions, while keeping solar affordable. The NBT incentivizes customers to install solar paired with storage to enhance grid reliability and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab found that storage attachment (installs paired with storage) rates under NBT have risen to roughly 60%. This is a huge leap up from the 10% attachment rates observed under the NEM tariffs—though notably still well below the 90% attachment rates observed in Hawaii, which shifted to NBT many years ago. … Since November 2023, residential storage installs have averaged roughly 5,000 systems per month, more than double the monthly pace over the preceding three years. … Battery storage allows customers to store solar energy during the day and export it during peak electricity demand hours in the evening, reducing reliance on polluting natural gas power plants, and thus greenhouse gas emissions.”
Different Views of the Future
Battaglia and his fellow Mycrogrid investors think their business model—individual solar systems not attached to the grid—represents the future of the industry.
“People can maximize their savings by putting the battery behind the meter, with none of the solar being exported onto the grid, and using that grid (only) as backup,” he said. “The utility can’t do anything about it. They can’t dive into your home and say, ‘No, no, if you build that microgrid in there, it’s a generator, and we have the right to access it.’ They can’t say, ‘We’re not going to provide electricity to that home.’ They can only say that if you don’t pay your bill—so pay your bill.”
Battaglia sees a future where some solar customers aren’t connected to the grid at all.
“If you have solar-only—solar and a battery—or nothing on your home, you’re paying $25 a month to remain connected to the grid,” Battaglia said. “That’s today. At the end of this year, it’ll be $70 per month, because (the utilities) are claiming to the Public Utilities Commission and the governor that they need that money to upkeep the grid. So, when that fixed cost gets to be $300, why would anyone want to remain connected to the grid? That is what Mycrogrid is preparing for.”
In contrast, HPE’s Otto sees a future for residential solar that hues much closer to the CPUC vision.
“We don’t have to build any more industrial-scale infrastructure, no more transmission, no more generation—because we are building behind-the-meter infrastructure that will support homes and keep them safe, and allow them to (personally) monitor their home’s electrical loads.”
Mycrogrid’s Vincent Battaglia
“If there’s a good net-metering agreement, I think that works really good for the end user,” Otto said. “But with the current state of net metering, I believe that you need the batteries—and the batteries certainly help the grid out as well. When you pair the batteries with the solar, it really does make it a distributed grid, and now you have the excess power for the end of the day, when the grid seems to need it more, or at least they need the relief more. So, I see the future with solar and batteries.
“We certainly have people who pretty much are their own utility,” Otto continued. “They’re providing enough power, and they’re storing enough power for most days. But you still need to be tied into the grid, so that when you have a bunch of clouds or extreme heat you’re not expecting, you could still draw from the grid. But we’re certainly doing more off-grid projects completely, where they are not tying to the utility at all. Maybe it’s new construction in outlying areas where you know the grid might be a half-mile away, and they don’t want to pay for the infrastructure to bring it to them. … We’re also seeing people get really, really close to not needing the grid at all, although they’re still connected.”
The construction of more AI data centers and large-scale warehouses means there be a significantly increased need for electricity. Battaglia said microgrids can help power companies meet this demand.
“My discussion with the governor’s office has been, ‘Guys, let’s not make this painful.’ I’m helping the utility,” Battaglia said. “Because if I take the load from homes off of the grid, which (equals) 35% of all of the electrons that are on Southern California Edison’s grid, and we take those folks to microgrids, imagine all of the additional capacity (the utilities) have for commercial centers, data centers, all of that. We don’t have to build any more industrial-scale infrastructure, no more transmission, no more generation—because we are building behind-the-meter infrastructure that will support homes and keep them safe, and allow them to (personally) monitor their home’s electrical loads.
“… It’s death, taxes and increasing electric bills—in life, those are the three inescapable realities,” Battaglia continued. “So why do we just act like the utilities are going to cooperate? They’re not going to. … I empathize with their situation. They have thousands and thousands of miles of transmission (lines), and it’s all old and aging out. It’s older than it was intended to be, and now they need to do the upkeep. So, who are they going to turn to? The ratepayers.”
Battaglia ended with a prediction: “By 2028, 50% of people who move into new homes will not be calling the utility to get a meter number assigned to them. They will be building microgrids—and that will sustain the entire home’s load.”
