Sunrun, a residential solar and storage provider in the United States, has released its financial results for the third quarter of this year, showcasing substantial achievements. The company installed 258.2 megawatts (MW) of new solar capacity during the quarter, marking a 131% year-on-year increase in installed storage capacity.
The results, which cover the period ending September 30, 2023, highlight Sunrun's continued growth in the clean energy sector. Although the third-quarter capacity additions were slightly lower than the previous quarter, the company remains on track to install over 1 gigawatt (GW) of new solar capacity by the end of 2023. Sunrun had previously added 239.8MW of new capacity in the first quarter and 296.6MW in the second quarter.
Sunrun also exhibited a positive trend in customer additions, with 32,413 new customers in the first quarter, 39,755 in the second quarter, and 33,806 in the third quarter. This growth propelled the company's total customer base to exceed 900,000. Notably, Sunrun added 19% more customers in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, underscoring the sustained interest in residential solar installations in the US.
Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, emphasized the company's focus on cash generation and a customer-centric, sustainable growth strategy that doesn't rely on equity funding. She noted that Sunrun is swiftly transitioning to become a storage-first company, a significant shift from its historical focus on residential solar power generation.
Sunrun's substantial increase in storage capacity installations from 2022 to 2023 indicates significant investment in this direction. This is evident in the company's storage attachment rates and the proportion of new solar installations incorporating battery storage systems.
During the third quarter of this year, Sunrun's storage attachment rates reached 33%, with some new sales achieving rates as high as 40%. In the first quarter of 2023, only 11.1% of all new residential solar systems in the US included storage systems, down from an all-time peak of just over 12% in 2022. Sunrun's attachment rate significantly surpasses the national average.
Sunrun's storage expansion efforts are strategically concentrated in regions where solar and storage are already prevalent, with California standing out as a prominent market. In California, Sunrun's attachment rate exceeds 85%, demonstrating the company's ability to thrive in a mature and lucrative market, signaling positive long-term prospects.
Danny Abajian, Chief Financial Officer of Sunrun, highlighted the deliberate go-to-market optimizations, including repositioning geographic mix, sales route mix, and product mix, as part of the company's transition towards becoming a storage-first organization.
