Residential solar and energy storage provider Sunrun announced its Q1 2025 earnings, delivering on revenue expectations and posting a surprise $0.20 per share over the expected -$0.27 per share.
The company reported first quarter revenues of $504 million, coming in over the expected $487 million expected by Wall Street consensus. The company delivered on its strategic focus on cash generation, generating $56 million in cash, which marks the fourth quarter in a row for positive cash flow.
Sunrun’s share price up was up roughly 10% in the trading session following the earnings report at the time of publication. The company reiterated a positive cash flow outlook for the full year 2025, guiding for a range between $200 million to $500 million.
Sunrun reported a market cap of $1.8 billion and $13.1 billion in total debt. As the residential solar industry in the United States has broadly contracted in recent years and regulatory uncertainty remains, the company has increased its focus on cash generation and paying down debts.
“We have a strong balance sheet with no near-term corporate debt maturities and have paid down recourse parent debt by $214 million over the last four quarters, including a $27 million paydown using excess cash in Q1,” said Danny Abajian, chief financial officer, Sunrun.
Sunrun installs solar plus storage via loans and cash deals, as well as gaining subscribers via a lease or power purchase agreement. The company added a aggregate subscriber value of $1.2 billion in Q1, representing 23% growth year-over-year.
The solar provider has increased its focus on battery energy storage. Customer additions with storage grew 46% year-over-year in the quarter and battery attachment rates hit a new high of 69%. Sunrun has installed more than 173,000 solar and storage systems, representing over 2.8 GWh of networked storage capacity.
The company said it is focused on underwriting volumes with strong unit margins, optimizing routes to market and driving cost discipline, including leveraging AI.
Residential solar installations in the United States declined 31% in 2024. Ongoing challenges with higher-for-longer interest rates and regulatory challenges continue to persist, with more policy uncertainty still looming.
“It is a dynamic environment for tax policy and tariffs,” said Mary Powell, chief executive officer, Sunrun. “Like many companies across the country, we are controlling what we can and are ready to adapt to changes that may occur. Sunrun has faced periods of major change over the last few years, and we used it as an opportunity to become even stronger. We believe the tariff outlook is manageable, and we will still generate meaningful cash this year.”
Flex and VPP
Sunrun recently introduced a new product offering called Flex, which designs systems larger to accommodate increased electricity usage as homeowners grow their family or add electric vehicles and appliances.
Under the program, customers have a predictable minimum monthly payment and pay for extra energy above their pre-solar consumption baseline usage at a locked in “Flex” rate. When customers use less energy than their baseline, they earn credits they can then apply when they use more energy in the future.
Sunrun also announced its CalReady program has quadrupled in size, reaching 56,000 customers with about 75,000 batteries.
CalReady is a virtual power plant (VPP) program in which its solar and energy storage customers agree to enroll their batteries to dispatch power during peak electricity demand events in exchange for compensation. Customers are paid up to $150 per battery enrolled in the program.
“Sunrun has created one of the largest batteries in the country, rivaling large-scale utility projects but without taking up additional land or requiring costly new infrastructure,” said Powell. “CalReady’s decentralized nature eliminates any potential single point of failure while offering greater resilience and flexibility for the state’s evolving energy needs.”
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