20% of US Rooftop Solar Systems Are Sunrun Systems, 45% of New Battery Installations Are Sunrun - CleanTechnica

Oct 28, 2024

Sunrun, the largest rooftop solar company in the United States, recently hit a big milestone — one million customers. We recently sat down with Chris Rauscher, Head of Grid Services & Virtual Power Plants at Sunrun, to discuss this and related matters. Listen to the podcast via the following embedded player, or use one of the podcast network links on the bottom of this artcle.

I’m just going to pull out a few key quotes and some fun stats shared in the podcast. Listen to the full pod for more nuance, context, facts, and fun.

First of all, Rauscher noted that 20% of rooftop solar PV systems in the US are now Sunrun systems. That’s a huge portion of a large solar market. Additionally, 45% of all new battery installations in the US are Sunrun installations.

Our own Scott Cooney asked how the company achieved that 20% market share of rooftop solar systems, and Rauscher responded as follows: “I think discipline. You know, we have always prioritized sustainable growth, and really maintain discipline on our core competencies. And, you know, we’ve seen lots of churn in the industry — both recently but also looking back 4 or 5 years or even 10 years. And I think Sunrun has had the ability to adapt and learn from what’s been on in the broader solar ecosystem and maintain our discipline on our sort of North Star there. Also, continuing to offer compelling products to our customers, and compelling services, great customer care, and then continuing to innovate, and I think when you put those all together, that’s how we’ve achieved the scale. And, plus, just the demand for solar and batteries — it’s really, really strong right now, and has been. That’s a tailwind we expect to continue for the long term.”

I couldn’t help but think that Chris was thinking about SolarCity a bit when he was talking about this. SolarCity was once the #1 rooftop solar system installer in the country. Then, it seems the company ran into financial challenges, and Tesla acquired SolarCity. Recall that the founders and head executives of SolarCity were cousins of Elon Musk, and Musk was Chairman of the Board. Whereas this was supposed to provide great synergies and lead to more and more solar power sales, this solar arm of Tesla’s business shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. You can see in Tesla’s latest shareholder letter from a few days ago that solar power deployments declined quarter over quarter for the past 4 quarters — and the decline actually goes back much further than that, but I’ll dig into that more in another article. Let’s get back to the Sunrun story.

Scott and Chris also talked about virtual power plants (VPPs), and how Sunrun customers are involved in VPPs. In that discussion, Rauscher noted that they have more than 25,000 customers enrolled in VPP programs. “Right now, that’s a scale that is unseen at any other company in the industry.”