Freedom Forever, a once thriving residential solar installer, joins a growing list of bankruptcies as distress in the US clean energy sector deepens under an unfriendly Trump administration and hopes for buyouts fade.
The company, led by ex-stock broker Brett Bouchy, filed for bankruptcy in Delaware on Wednesday, court documents showed. It listed assets of $100 million to $500 million and estimated debts at $500 million to $1 billion.
Freedom Forever, once a top US residential solar installer, operates in 32 states. Company executives told Bloomberg News at an industry conference in September that the firm expected to grow and take market share, despite federal policy headwinds.
The US solar industry has been hit hard by President Donald Trump's rollback of supportive federal policies, higher tariffs as well as elevated borrowing costs. Several leading residential solar companies have filed for bankruptcy over the past two years, including Sunnova Energy International Inc., SunPower Corp. and financier Solar Mosaic.
The passage of Trump's sweeping spending bill sunset a 30% tax credit for consumer purchases of home solar panels last year. The sequential bankruptcies threaten long-term energy savings for homeowners and compounding problems for those who borrowed money to fund their solar panels.
The residential solar market is expected to contract by 19% this year following the expiration of tax credits for homeowner purchases of panels, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said an executive order mandating banks to collect citizenship information from their customers is "in process," according to news outlet Semafor.
"I don't think it's unreasonable, because: Why don't we have information on who's in our banking system?," Semafor reported Bessent saying at a Monday dinner hosted by the news outlet in Washington. "I have a place in the UK; they want to know who lives in every apartment."
That planned executive action would represent a significant new push in President Donald Trump's effort to discourage undocumented migration to the US, and could impose substantial new mandates on financial institutions.
Citizenship documents aren't currently necessary to open a bank account in the US. In the European Union, banks commonly accept a national ID card in place of a passport, though citizenship verification is more common in other nations.
The order to require a passport or other proof of citizenship could make it more difficult for immigrants and citizens alike to open bank accounts. There were only about 183 million US passports in circulation in 2025, compared with a US population of more than 340 million.
The Wall Street Journal and Semafor have previously reported that new citizenship verification rules could apply to not only new customers but existing account holders, potentially placing large regulatory and compliance burdens on both consumers and financial institutions.
Some Treasury employees have been trying to guide the agency's politically appointed officials toward a softer proposal for banks to certify US citizenship, Bloomberg previously reported. Banking industry groups have also raised concerns about the feasibility of checking immigration status and the potential impact on customers.
Banks have also warned about potential damage to the US economy if people started losing access to the banking system, the people said.
Interest Rates
Bessent also said the Federal Reserve should take a "wait and see" approach on whether to lower interest rates as the Iran war has pushed up global energy prices and sparked worry about inflation levels.
"In terms of: Do I think rates should be lowered? Eventually. I think now that we have to wait and see; we have to wait and see what happens to the economy," Bessent said at the Semafor event Monday. The central bank is "doing the right thing by sitting and watching."
Bessent said that his prediction made before the start of the Iran war envisioning 4% annual economic growth was still possible, but added "we're going to have some make up to do."