3.3 Five lessons from the SunPower bankruptcy

U.S. solar companies have no genuine technological moat — the cells, inverters, and chemistry inside their equipment all come from the same handful of Asian factories everyone else uses.
Policy shifts are lethal: the end of the federal ITC + NEM 3.0 + high interest rates, all changing at once, guarantees a wave of consolidation and bankruptcies.
Heavy dependence on builder tie-ups: California's Title 24 makes solar mandatory on new homes; SunPower signed exclusives with home builders and forced new homeowners to "accept" undersized systems at 2–3× market price.
Subcontracted installs + unlicensed labor + multiple roofs per day: the production-line model produces a steady stream of warranty defects.
Third-party-owned (TPO) contracts carry 25 years of "receivable" on the balance sheet, but operating cash flow is negative. The moment debt rollover fails, the whole structure collapses.

3.2 Big installer vs small installer — which one is actually safer

3.4 What's really behind the "premium" equipment names

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