SolarCity Commemorates Earth Day with New Finance Option - Analyst Blog
Celebrated on Apr 22 every year, Earth Day observes various events to raise awareness about safeguarding our environment and the planet at large. Solar energy system manufacturer, SolarCity Corporation SCTY marked the day by announcing that it has activated a fund, which includes an investment from Credit Suisse Group AG CS, of over $1 billion to finance commercial solar energy systems.
The commercial solar systems that will be financed include battery storage systems for businesses, schools and government organizations across the U.S. The deal was finalized with the bank in February while the funding started in March.
This large-sized fund is expected to finance in excess of 300 MW of new commercial solar projects over the next two years.
SolarCity had earlier rolled out various other financing programs for residential as well as commercial solar installers. The MyPower loan plan launched in Oct 2014 has been very popular. The company has already taken the MyPower solar loan offering to eight states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.
2014 saw a boom in the solar industry, particularly in residential solar, as loan offerings made rooftop installations both affordable and lucrative. Owning solar systems at home rather than leasing them became a quick and easy process and declining utility bills were a further incentive.
Various companies collaborated with banks and other entities to come up with a range of innovative financing solutions. Last year, SunPower Corp. SPWR teamed up with Google Inc. GOOGL to form a $250 million fund to help homeowners across the U.S. to go solar.
Per the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) forecast, solar consumption in the U.S. will escalate 22.5% to 0.523 quadrillion btu in 2015 and 36.3% to 0.582 quadrillion btu in 2016 from 2014 levels. This coupled with the EIA’s clean power proposal of lowering carbon emission will fuel more solar installation in the future.
The proliferation of financing options has led to increasing solar installation in residential and commercial sites across the nation. SolarCity has successfully completed more than 1,800 commercial solar projects in 21 states.
SolarCity Corporation currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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