Dive Brief:
- SolarCity posted a loss of $0.75 per share for Q3 2014, which beat analyst expectations of a $1.12 per share loss. The company reported sales $58.3 million, below analyst expectations of $60.2 million.
- SolarCity deployed 137 MW in Q3, which came in below analyst expectations of 144 MW but was up 77% over the same time last year. Residential deployments saw an even more significant increase—100% over the same time last year.
- SolarCity reported it has 230 MW of solar deployments booked in its pipeline and revised its projection for deployments, saying it will build between 505-520 MW in 2014.
Dive Insight:
SolarCity's share of the market has risen from 11% to 36% in under three years, COO Tanguy Serra said on the company's earnings call.
This was the fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue increases for SolarCity, according to Greentech Media. CEO Lyndon Rive called it a "record quarter."
SolarCity had a busy Q3, launching notable new products such as its innovative new hybrid loan/PPA product and its groundbreaking first public bond offering. Loans will make up a growing part of SolarCity's model, Rive noted on the call, and could eventually make up 40%-50% of the business.
The company addressed the market uncertainty caused by the looming end of the 30% solar investment tax credit (ITC) at the end of 2016. SolarCity wants to "ultimately make solar affordable on an unsubsidized basis," Serra said.
Loans are becoming more popular and are starting to take some of third-party ownership's share of the market, but the expiry of the ITC could potentially see the market shift back to third-party ownership, Nicole Litvak, solar analyst at GTM Research, suggested to Utility Dive a month ago. That's because the ITC doesn't expire for commercial systems—it drops down to 10%. Leased systems are technically owned by SolarCity, meaning they could still qualify for the 10% ITC in 2017, boosting their value in the marketplace.