Dive Brief:
- Consolidation in residential rooftop solar is increasing as big energy and installation companies realize the prize is a twenty year relationship with a high-value electricity consumer. Major companies are positioning themselves to “stretch the value of solar."
- Energy giant NRG’s subsidiary NRG Solar acquired Roof Diagnostics, the eighth biggest U.S. installer, and partnered with Comcast.
- Sunrun, the national leader in third party ownership rooftop solar installations, acquired competitor REC Solar and formed a customer-acquisition partnership with competitor Sungevity.
- SolarCity, the national installation leader, achieved its market-dominating share through similar partnerships with companies like Zep Solar and Tesla.
Dive Insight:
With big customer bases of solar adopters, installation companies can become energy companies. Utilities are already calculating small losses of retail sales to such customers and are projecting major market-share losses to continuing current trends.
Companies as diverse as Google, Comcast, AT&T, and Vivint Security are getting in the competition by becoming energy services providers. Services the new players can market after their customers commit to solar include home energy management, energy efficiency upgrades, and battery storage.
Many say most utilities are mistakenly missing the opportunity to take advantage of this business model.
