SunPower/PowerLight combo good for industry
I had a chat the other day with Jigar Shah, founder and CEO of solar energy service provider SunEdison LLC, about the SunPower and PowerLight merger and what it would mean for the industry.
If you’ll recall, I wrote in an earlier post that the deal makes sense on the surface but could piss off some of SunPower’s customers if the perception was out there that PowerLight would get special treatment in the market. I also mentioned that it looks like SunPower is trying to position itself vertically in the market by purchasing a system integrator.
“I don’t think the story goes that way,” said Shah, pointing out that SunPower downplayed PowerLight’s integration business in the conference call and focused more on the company’s products — its sun trackers and other structures that support solar deployment. “I think SunPower is going to take its modules and combine them with PowerLight’s structures.”
He said the overall goal is to reduce the cost of solar installations, recognizing that module/panel costs are only part of the equation. “This merger helps reduce the cost of solar because they’re going to be doing better integration between their modules and installation techniques.”
The bottom line is that Shah believes the deal is good for the industry, which will likely continue on its current path of consolidation. “We are very bullish on this deal,” he said. “We think it’s a great move for the industry.”
SunEdison, you’ll recall, purchased system integrator Team Solar Inc. this summer.
For a different take, click here for Neal Dikeman’s view and here for Joel Makower’s view.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
