Category Archives: SolarCity

SolarCity does everything —Will Arnold of SolarCity

Will Arnold spends a lot of time in Toronto for SolarCity but he came to Atlanta to talk to Southern Solar Summit. SolarCity does everything from financing to design, installation, monitoring, and maintenance.

SolarCity’s founders are all IT people. The most famous is perhaps Elon Musk, who also founded Paypal and SpaceX. Two other co-founders sold their previous company to Dell, and SolarCity just got a $280 million investment from Google. I’ve been comparing the solar market now to Silicon Valley 20 years ago, because of how fast it’s growing, how pragmatic and experimental it is, and the general attitude of the people. It turns out in SolarCity it is Silicon Valley.

Will Arnold talked a lot about state incentives that sometimes seemed perpetually going to be solidified soon or other regulatory whims.

He remarked that SolarCity’s leases were predicated on people Continue reading →

SolarCity gets big investment from Google

Google invests megabucks in SolarCity, the California company that handles all financing of solar panels and provides them to the customer with no money down and a reasonable monthly payment.

Steve Hargreaves wrote in CNNMoneyTech 14 June 2011, Google invests $280 million in SolarCity

Google and rooftop solar power company SolarCity announced a $280 million investment deal Tuesday, the largest such deal for home-based solar power systems in the United States.

The investment will give San Mateo, Calif-based SolarCity the funding to build and lease solar power systems to a 7,000 to 9,000 homeowners in the 10 states where it operates.

Founded five years ago, SolarCity has 15,000 solar projects around the nation completed or under way. Customers who wish to have the company’s solar system installed at their home can pay for it outright, but most choose instead to let SolarCity retain ownership of the equipment and rent back the use of it through monthly solar lease payments.

Another financing method is Solar Mosaic, where people pool their money to buy shares in a solar installation.

-jsq

PS: This post owed to M.J. Kuntz.