Over the course of this strange year, American residential solar companies such as Sunrun, Vivint, SunPower and Tesla claimed they could weather the Covid storm with remote selling and new online strategies.
It turns out they were right.
BloombergNEF is forecasting that Americans will install a record 3 GW of solar on the roofs of their homes, although those figures might not match expectations from simpler times in late 2019.
BNEF forecasts another 3.6 gigawatts to be installed in 2021.
Capital and customers still pouring into home solar
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, capital is still pouring into solar.
U.S. solar manufacturer SunPower recently announced a $1 billion partnership with Silicon Valley credit union Tech CU that will gives the former access to a capital for its loan program. The partnership provides financing opportunities for potential U.S. residential solar and energy storage customers. Tech CU is one of the 20 largest credit unions in California.
The combination of online sales strategies and a new set of homebound, energy-curious customers has enabled the market to grow in a cataclysmic year.
“The push for renewables is really strong,” said Tara Narayanan, an analyst, quoted in the Bloomberg Green piece. “It’s allowed the sector to shake off the worst of the plague and some natural disasters.”
As we’ve reported, Covid-19’s sudden arrival put resiliency at the forefront of people’s minds and accelerated adoption of digital sales practices.
“We’re seeing a lot of success in the conversion to digital sales… We’ve taken how the industry would have evolved – probably in two years – and we’ve done it in a month,” Lynn Jurich, CEO of Sunrun said during a quarterly earnings call. “I’m very encouraged by this transition and what it can mean for acquisition costs,” she added
During Q1 earnings calls, Vivint and Sunrun’s CEOs both said that April was a banner month in terms of digital leads. Enphase Energy also noted that it was seeing an increase in digital leads and in traffic to its online store.
“Early indications are that even if the country enters a prolonged economic downturn with poor consumer confidence, people will still want solar,” Jurich said during Sunrun’s earnings call.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Just think what the US could do if they copied Australia who will also install 3 GW of rooftop solar this year