Sunrun has surpassed its high-end guidance by adding 239.8MW of PV capacity in Q1 2023, bringing its total installed capacity to 5.9GW. The company is on track to reach 1GW in 2023, an increase of 12% year-on-year. Additionally, Sunrun's customer base grew by 10% YoY, with 32,413 customers added in Q1 2023, taking the total number of customers to nearly 830,000, of which 692,000 are subscribers.
According to Danny Abajin, Chief Financial Officer at Sunrun, the forthcoming tax credit adders in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will only be available to subscribers, which will continue to shift customer additions towards a subscription model. Mary Powell, CEO at Sunrun, said, “The strength of Sunrun's energy subscription offering and leading market presence allowed us to gain significant market share, and these trends are set to accelerate in the quarters ahead.”
Sales activities increased by 30% in Q1 2023 compared to the same period in the previous year, driven by strong numbers in customer additions and solar capacity installed. California remains a strong market for the company, with an 80% YoY increase in sales during Q1 2023 due to the changes in the net energy metering (NEM) programme.
Sunrun's group revenues for Q1 2023 reached US$589.8 million, up 19% from the same period in the previous year. Despite nearly US$80 million in cash deposits at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the bank's collapse in March had no “adverse impact” on the company during Q1, according to Abajin. He said, “We responded to developments quickly and decisively, and numerous capital partners reached out to us indicating interest to step into another lender's funding commitments, which we ultimately did not need.”
Sunrun has appointed investee Lunar Energy to manage its home battery virtual power plants (VPP) network in the US, and it secured US$835 million in non-recourse financing to support its portfolio of leases and power purchase agreements (PPAs) earlier this year. The company expects to install between 270MW to 290MW of solar capacity in Q2 2023, according to its forward guidance.
