SolarCity, Real Goods Solar Grow Through Acquisitions

A couple of acquisitions are taking place among well-known solar installers, SolarCity and Real Goods Solar.

SolarCity (Nasdaq: SCTY) is acquiring one of its most successful partners, Paramount Solar, for about $120 million.

Paramount gets $116.3 million in SolarCity stock and the rest in cash, and its CEO, Hayes Barnard, will head SolarCity’s sales and marketing.

Paramount has built the best virtual sales organization in the industry, giving SolarCity the ability to reach customers at lower cost. It’s a perfect combination with SolarCity, which has the top field sales and marketing organization, says Lyndon Rive, SolarCity CEO.

SolarCity has more than 68,000 customers – its goal is to reach one million customers in the next five years. That would bring it from 400 MW installed today to 6000 megawatts.

While the residential residential solar market in the US has been growing 60-70% a year, the company has been growing 144% a year, with three times the market share as its nearest competitor, says Rive. SolarCity currently serves 14 states and signs a new customer every five minutes!, says the company.

The acquisition positions SolarCity for the trend of using the Web to streamline customer acquisition and cut costs throughout the installation process. 

Since its IPO in December 2012, SolarCity’s stock has quadrupled in price.

Real Goods Grows

It’s great to see Real Goods Solar (Nasdaq: RSOL) growing. Back in 1978, it was among the very first solar installers in the US.

The California company is expanding through two acquisitions: Denver-based Syndicated Solar, which focuses on residential and NY-based Mercury Solar Systems, which focuses on commercial. The mergers also help Real Goods deepen its presence regionally. 

Real Goods has installed 15,000 solar systems totaling well over 100 MW, the company says. It has 15 offices across the West and the Northeast.

In 2011, Real Goods merged with another pioneer, Alteris Renewables. The company has been expanding mostly through acquisitions since its IPO in 2008.