RGS Energy is walking the walk when it comes to bringing a product to market. You might remember the last time we waxed poetically about the Powerhouse. The company is now progressing nicely – $36 million in ‘written reservations’ on June 28 nicely. A week later, the company noted that they’d broken $42 million – a $1.5 million a day pace, and $50 million on July 16. They’ve also expanded manufacturing partnerships to enable further growth.
RGS still has a while for 1% of the 5 million residential re-roofing projects undertaken each year in the United States that would be worth $1 billion to the company – but again – steps are being taken.
On July 6th, RGS Energy announced that their Powerhouse 3.0 solar shingle system had passed UL tests for Class A Fire.
According to Brad Bentzen, direct of Powerhouse division,
Solar tests are now the only tests remaining toward UL 1703 Certification. Given that POWERHOUSE™ 3.0 uses industry standard silicon technology, we remain confident we will receive full UL 1703 certification by September as anticipated.
And this morning, RGS Energy released a new press release stating that they’d broken $60 million in ‘written reservations.’ In the 24 days since their June 28 announcement of $36 million in reservations, they’ve averaged $960,000 more per day.
The company noted that reservations had been coming from three dozen roofing dealers across 15 states.
If the $60 million represents equipment kit reservations at $2.80/W, then 21 megawatts worth of product have been ordered to date. RGS Energy, via an email with pv magazine, stated that it was safe to say that more than 20 megawatts of solar shingles had been reserved.
RGS Energy’s hopes are significantly buoyed by two factors – Tesla and California. Tesla makes increased market size, since the company legitimized the Powerhouse by showing that the marketplace has a high quality (and higher priced) competitor. Additionally, Tesla’s marketing reach will significantly expand the public’s knowledge of such products.
Of course, California’s solar rooftop mandate will change the solar power industry. And with RGS Energy being a premium aesthetic product that will amazingly integrate with a new home installation – the company is primed for victory.
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really? A penny stock? A company that has not yet manufactured the product? Not even has achieved certification? Where is this pumping coming from?
It just got UL fire safety certification. If anything, their pump is coming from their press releases and folks like me wanting and hoping for their product to make a comeback.
I was referring to the next, most important UL certification coming in September that will allow them to actually sell this product.
I think that’s why the company is taking ‘written reservations’ versus sales
A downpayment would have been much, much better and would have helped to avoid severe dilution and the crash of the stock price. But perhaps management has zero credibility and cash downpayments of say 10%-15% may have been unthinkable?
The product itself has been a challenge in the market – its already failed twice. And no one else has really gotten shingles to go. We’ll see this time. If you read what I’ve written on them prior, you can see my emotions shifting toward positive as they move through this process…but until someone makes a shingle sell sell and sell, there is a product challenge still.
Management issues – I don’t know about that stuff unfortunately. Stock prices either. As a result of you though, I did send an email asking about when they might shift from written reservations to something meatier.
Real hard cash will show firm commitment as well as high levels of trust by service providers and expose management to liability if they don’t follow through. So a game changer, if you ask. Keep us posted and thank you for replying.
Did I read that correctly, $2.80/W?! That’s astronomical for solar economics these days. Even if one were to factor in reroofing with this product, shingle roofing doesn’t cost that much. I’m all for new, reliable, products coming into the market, but the economics here don’t make any practical sense. Unless I’m missing something?
That’s a good question anyone know the answer?