Sunpower agrees to be Toll Brothers’ exclusive California solar provider

SunPower and Toll Brothers, a luxury home construction company with operations in 24 states, have come to terms on a multi-year agreement under which SunPower will be Toll Brothers’ exclusive provider of solar technology across California.

The deal, combined with California’s new home solar mandate, means that nearly every home Toll Brothers builds in California will include a SunPower Equinox home solar system. And, while not required either by the mandate or the agreement, the move also increases homebuyers’ access to energy storage, via SunPower’s SunVaultä storage system.

The agreement could eventually encompass more than just California, as it provides a framework for expansion to additional states in which Toll Brothers and SunPower operate.

For now, however, the agreement includes only the Equinox system. It was unclear if the expansion terms are geographic in nature or if they include hardware. In 2020, KB Home, one of the largest homebuilders in the U.S., said that it was the first homebuilder to offer SunPower’s building integrated solar roof  product.

According to a release, the roofing product included interlocking metal roof trays with integrated panel clips to install SunPower solar panels directly to the roof deck. The design is intended to create a watertight, impermeable solar roof.  The release claimed that the design is  faster and easier to install than traditional rack-mounted PV systems.

Sunpower and KB had a decade worth of collaboration on solar homes prior to that announcement.

Sunpower is building on a strong Q2 in which the company added 13,000 customers and saw residential bookings increase 16% and 67% year over year. This agreement with Toll Brothers will help to bolster the company’s Q3 customer additions, which are expected to grow more than 40% over 2020.