The CEO of power giant NRG Energy, David Crane, told me earlier this week
to expect big things from his company around rooftop solar systems for
homes. Now here’s some major news on that front:
On Thursday NRG Energy
announced that it plans to acquire Roof Diagnostics Solar, the sixth largest residential solar installer in the U.S. with 470 employees. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Based in New Jersey, Roof Diagnostics Solar is currently focused on
providing solar installation and financing services to East Coast home
owners, but plans to expand its services to the West Coast soon. NRG
Energy already has a small but growing residential solar installation
and financing business called NRG Residential Solar Solutions. Roof
Diagnostics Solar will start operating under the NRG Residential Solar
Solutions brand within the next month.
David Crane — CEO and President, NRG Energy
While NRG has had a business around installing and funding solar
panel systems for commercial and industrial building owners for awhile,
its residential rooftop solar business with solar leases was rolled out
in fits and starts. Crane told me this week that NRG hadn’t been more
aggressive in the home rooftop solar market before because the price of
solar systems are just now becoming affordable for about half of the
U.S. this year.
But now, since the price of solar panels has come down so much,
“residential solar is at the vortex of what our company is trying to
do,” said Crane. NRG eventually wants to sell a branded package of
residential energy services, including home automation and control
systems; Crane says the company is going to spend the next 18 months
rolling out these services.
Crane tells me he wants NRG to be as big or bigger than SolarCity,
which is currently one of the largest solar installer and financiers in
the U.S. As of the third quarter of 2013, SolarCity was responsible for a third of home
solar panels on rooftops. By the end of 2014 SolarCity plans to have 1
GW of solar panels installed over its lifetime since 2006.
NRG has the balance sheet to compete, though it’s trailing an already
crowded market. According to NRG’s annual report, the power company
owns 25 GW of natural gas power plants, 13 GW of coal generation, 448 MW
of wind farms, 1.2 GW of utility-scale solar systems, and 47 MW of
distributed solar panels on rooftops (53 MW including systems under
construction).
Many of NRG’s acquisitions to date have been large power plant
companies that own natural gas and clean power assets. The company
bought GenOn in late 2012 and Edison Mission Energy in late 2013. But
NRG says its future growth will come from distributed solar and from
consumers making energy choices. In its annual report it wrote:
“The Company believes that the U.S. energy industry is going to be increasingly impacted by the long-term societal trend towards sustainability, which is both generational and irreversible. Moreover, it further believes the information technology-driven revolution, which has enabled greater and easier personal choice in other sectors of the consumer economy, will do the same in the U.S. energy sector over the years to come.”
Crane wrote in that annual report that he wants NRG to operate more
like one of the top four internet players — Google, Apple, Amazon and
Facebook — that create consumer services that are connected, seamless,
empowering and provide choices. Distributed solar systems will be a big
part of that.
Solar saw massive growth in 2013. There were
4.75 GW of solar energy systems installed in 2013, including 2 GW in
just the fourth quarter alone. That made solar the second largest source
of new electricity generation in the U.S. last year, only behind
natural gas. The amount of solar installed last year was 41 percent
higher than in 2012. There are now over 12 GW of solar panels installed
in the U.S. — from 440,000 solar panel systems — and 918 megawatts of
solar thermal power.
http://gigaom.com/2014/03/27/nrg-energy-scoops-up-home-roof-solar-company/
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