Breaking · 22 October 2026 · 11:53
sonnen, Germany's home-battery pioneer, has filed for insolvency
sonnen filed an insolvency application on Thursday, two months after Shell sold it.
“In my view, a famous owner is a cushion, not a plan. When Shell left, the cushion left with it.”— Max Noble
Confirmed by the company to Handelsblatt on 22 October, and reported the same day by pv magazine, Electrek and t-online.
No court had opened proceedings, and no administrator had been named, when I wrote this.
On Thursday morning, 22 October, staff in Wildpoldsried, a village in the Allgäu in southern Germany, were told that sonnen GmbH had filed an insolvency application. The company confirmed the filing to Handelsblatt.
sonnen was founded in Wildpoldsried in 2010. It made home batteries that store solar power. Later it linked many of those homes into one virtual power plant.
Shell bought sonnen in 2019. In August 2026, Shell sold it to the investor TIVEN.
The market around it changed fast. In 2024, Asian makers held more than half of the German market for home batteries, pv magazine reported.
sonnen's American arm is not reported to be insolvent. On the same day, it said its US sales had doubled, Electrek reported.
The next step is for a court to decide whether to open proceedings and who acts as administrator. I will update this page when that happens.
What it means
- For customers: more than 150,000 customers have been told that service will continue. How the ten-year warranties will be honoured is not yet clear, Münster Aktuell reported.
- For staff: about 400 people work for sonnen in Wildpoldsried. Their future now depends on the court and the administrator.
- For installers and suppliers: orders and payments may be affected until an administrator is in place.
Follow what happens next.
The Morning Warning List is updated on maxnoble.com every morning, and arrives by email every Monday and Thursday at 05:00. It follows the companies on the edge, before and after they fall.
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- sonnen files for insolvency (Sandra Enkhardt, 22 Oct 2026) · pv-magazine.de
- Company confirms the filing (Kathrin Witsch, 22 Oct 2026, paywall) · handelsblatt.com
- sonnen files for insolvency in Germany as US sales double (22 Oct 2026) · electrek.co
- About 400 jobs at risk (Julian Seiferth, 22 Oct 2026) · t-online.de
- What it means for customers and warranties (Tim Eichler, 22 Oct 2026) · ms-aktuell.de
- Shell sells sonnen to TIVEN (28 Aug 2026) · ess-news.com
- Shell's announcement of the purchase (15 Feb 2019) · shell.co.uk
- German home-battery market 2024: Asian makers above 50 percent (5 May 2025) · pv-magazine.de
- sonnen (company history) · de.wikipedia.org
I report what the sources show at the time of writing. If something changes, I update this page and note the change.