America’s residential solar market is in the middle of a monumental shift for a couple of reasons.
Solar growth is slowing down, partly because of policy uncertainty and partly because of business-model issues at top national installers. That, in turn, is leading to local installers taking up a greater market share.
Consequently, solar loans and cash purchases are gaining market share, while third-party leases and PPAs are losing ground. Solar is getting cheaper, and loans and cash purchases are more accessible for consumers. Also, local installers are more likely to offer a loan -- and in order to compete with the long tail of installers and meet this demand, all the major third-party financiers are now offering a loan product.
There are a lot of complex factors behind this switch: customer preferences, customer acquisition techniques, capital availability, and market growth rates.
In this week's show, we'll talk with Nicole Litvak, a senior solar analyst with GTM Research, about how the evolution of solar financing illustrates a broader shift in the residential solar sector.
The conversation is based on Litvak's new report, U.S. Residential Solar Financing 2016-2021.
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