My Update. Just over 22 months ago I joined the team at Quick Mount and moved my family to the Bay Area. After 13 years developing, financing and leading teams in C&I and utility scale solar, I joined the residential solar segment. Quick Mount revolutionized the mounting space going back to 2006 and in a competitive market I was asked to get Quick Mount back to its leadership position. What originally was estimated to be a 3 year process, ended up in a sale of the company in 14 months from the moment I arrived. The team was best in class and ownership trusted us to grow it with great additions and success followed with a new strategy implemented. With the turnaround and sale complete, I remained with the acquiring company to help with the integration and now is the time to move on to find the next great company in solar. The past 2 years have been the greatest time in my professional career and a real sign of the maturity in solar today. In the meantime there will be time to catch up with family and consulting while the opportunities present themselves as they have in the past.
The People. If I learned one thing in the last 2 years it is that the people in residential solar are amazing and what’s proof in the past month is that their resilience is like no other. I’m overjoyed to have had a chance to work with this group of solar professionals and look forward to doing much more with you.
The Market. I published my bullish outlook of the market a few weeks ago which has now been confirmed by half a dozen public companies during their earnings calls. In my interview with Palmetto’s CEO and President we talked about how the company had some of their best sales in the past month and I predicted that 2020 wasn’t going to be a down year compared to 2019. I believe that not only is 2020 going to be a better year than expected but I see great promise in the years ahead, investors are saying the same by buying in on the company stocks. Whether it is public or private markets, solar’s investment environment has never been better.
SolarWakeup. SolarWakeup will continue publishing the newsletter and expand into serving the solar market with reports and information. Many of you have already participated in the module index which will expand its reach and value that it creates for manufacturers and installers alike. Just like Expedia expanded air travel, so will a transparent marketplace for installers. You already see manufacturers expanding clarity with online stores and dealer networks as proof of the path forward. More to come on this tomorrow.
Opinion
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
Virtual Edition Rewind. You can catch yesterday’s virtual edition of SolarWakeup Live! About virtual sales and digital operations here. Thanks for all that joined.
Big News Monday. Stay tuned for some big news on Monday. In the meantime, here is the one thing that caught my eye in reviewing the earnings slides for each report outlining the performance in Q1 this year. Note that COVID impact largely started with two weeks left in the quarter and the commentary is more indicative of what the future holds. That being said, there is a consistent message that Q2 will be 30% of 2019 and we have already hit bottom.
Sunrun. 2020 brings thus far the highest percentage of leases as a function of total projects, back to early 2018 levels. Q1 this year was bigger than Q2 2019. Slides.
Vivint Solar. The company also exceeded Q2 of 2019 and every quarter in 2018. System installation cost are the highest they’ve been in years, unsure what would have caused that. Company now has cumulatively installed 1.3GW of solar on homes. Slides.
SunPower. Slides are showing the company in a quasi split environment, anticipating the manufacturing to go away in 2020 to the Maxeon entity. The manufacturing plants are either back up and running or scheduled to. Balance sheet still shows the 2 million shares of Enphase the company owns from the sale of Solarbridge a few years ago. Note to SunPower execs, anything you want to do for my Solarbridge inverters on my house circa 2012 would be appreciated. Slides
Enphase. In Q1 2019 the company generated net income of $2.7million. In Q1 2020 that increased to $68million with margins at almost 40%. The stock is trading nearly at pre-COVID levels while upside is still huge given revenues are less than half that of Solaredge and GTM reports market share to be about half in US residential. Slides
Solaredge. The company shipped more optimizers and inverters and delivered higher revenues in Q1 2020 than in Q4 2019. In this quarter that company shipped 1.8GW of inverters. Slides
First Solar. Here’s some scale for you, the First Solar pipeline is over 12GW now and their module roadmap presents a 500W module in the near future. Not too bad for low efficiency thin film. The manufacturing plants are up and running at nearly full capacity. Slides
Opinion
News
Opinions:
Have a great day!
Yann
[wpforms id="13526"]
For access to the "Digitizing Solar Operations from Lead Generation To Project Sale and Installation" webinar, please enter your contact information to be redirected.[wpforms id="13526"]