Tag Archives: Sunedison

Investors React Positively to SunEdison’s Restructured Plan to Buy Vivint Solar

December 9, 2015 3:31 pm ,

By Stephen Lacey, Greentech Media

SunEdison shares jumped more than 14 percent today after the company revised the terms of its acquisition of residential installer Vivint Solar.

In July, SunEdison unveiled a $2.2 billion plan to acquire Vivint in cash, stock and convertible notes. Investors were not thrilled with the terms of the deal, however, and SunEdison’s stock declined precipitously over the following months.

Under the new agreement, SunEdison’s YieldCo, TerraForm Power, will pay $799 million in cash for Vivint’s residential portfolio — down from the original $922 million in cash. Vivint Solar shareholders have an option to purchase SunEdison’s common stock for an additional $0.75 per share.

Read full article from Greentech Media

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The Silicon Valley Idea That’s Driving Solar Use Worldwide

November 30, 2015 4:29 pm ,

By Mark Chediak & Christopher Martin, Bloomberg News

Silicon Valley has something to offer the world in the drive toward a clean energy economy. And it’s not technology.

It’s a financing formula. In a region that spawned tech giants Apple Inc. and Google and is famous for innovators and entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, a handful of startups began offering to install solar panels on the homes of middle-class families in return for no-money down and monthly payments cheaper than a utility bill. This third-party leasing method — which made expensive clean energy gear affordable — ignited a rooftop solar revolution with annual U.S. home installations increasing 16-fold since 2008, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research.

“There is a reason why California is a tech Mecca for the world because the infrastructure is here to attract that talent,” said SolarCity Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Lyndon Rive, whose company popularized third-party solar leases for homeowners starting in 2008. “All the major innovation is going to occur in California. One of the innovations is the financing of solar assets.”

SolarCity took the leasing model that SunEdison Inc. first developed for the solar industry by a graduate student named Jigar Shah. SolarCity adapted that model for residential consumers in 2008 and many more offered similar arrangements including Sunrun Inc., which developed the first one in September 2007, and Vivint Solar Inc. And now the idea is spreading to other industries trying to sell expensive capital equipment that reduce pollution and fossil fuel consumption.

Read full article from Bloomberg News

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18 schools across California turn to SunEdison to save millions with solar

November 19, 2015 2:04 pm ,

SunEdison, Inc. today announced that it has signed 20-year power-purchase agreements with six school districts across California. These agreements will see more than 9 megawatts of solar installed at 18 elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the state, and is expected to save taxpayers more than $30 million in energy costs over the next 20 years.

The six unified school districts getting new solar systems are Atascadero, Fairfax, Gilroy, Paso Robles, Templeton, and Tracy. The districts worked with California joint powers authority SPURR to arrange the solar power deals with SunEdison.

Each solar system will be installed on a parking canopy, a roof that sits above parked cars at the school. SunEdison intends to start construction during the first half of 2016, and aims to finish by the third quarter. The solar systems are expected to generate enough energy to offset more than 75 percent of the electricity used by the school buildings. That same amount of electricity is enough to power around 2,200 California homes a year. The systems will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 170 million pounds over the 20-year period.

Read full press release from SunEdison

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Zero-net energy home pilot set to open in Fontana

September 16, 2015 12:03 pm ,

By Ivan Penn, The Los Angeles Times

Global renewable giant SunEdison announced Wednesday that it would supply advanced battery technology for nine Southern California homes that will generate and store their own energy. The first of the project’s so-called zero-net energy homes, which are being built in Fontana, is expected to be completed by the end of September with the remaining eight finished by the first quarter of 2016.

A zero-net energy home is supposed to generate as much energy as it consumes. SunEdison, which develops, finances and installs equipment for renewable energy sources such as solar, designed a system that will monitor and control how energy is used in the homes. SunEdison partnered with builder Meritage Homes and Southern California Edison to develop the project. SunEdison is supplying a five-kilowatt battery for each of the homes.

The effort, led by the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, is considered an important part of future grid planning. The California Public Utilities Commission’s Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan aims to have all new homes be zero-net energy, beginning in 2020. For commercial buildings, the target year is 2030.

Read full article in the Los Angeles Times

Related Article: SunEdison supplies batteries for net-zero energy homes in California (Computerworld)

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Palm Springs to save $25 million by going solar

September 10, 2015 3:22 pm ,

By Sammy Roth, The Desert Sun

Palm Springs expects to save nearly $25 million over the next 25 years by installing solar panels at eight sites around the city, including the convention center and the downtown parking structure.

The city has entered into final contract negotiations with two national solar companies: SolarCity and SunEdison. SunEdison will install solar panels at the convention center, the downtown parking structure, and several other civic buildings and city parks. SolarCity will tackle installations at the city’s wastewater treatment plant and the Sunrise Plaza complex. The city expects all eight systems to come online by the end of 2016.

City staff estimates Palm Springs will save nearly $33.8 million over the next 25 years on its electricity bills, while spending about $9 million to install the panels and pay off the solar firms over time. The city will pay just $3.2 million in up-front costs, with some of that money covered by grants from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.  The city could save an additional $1.2 million if money from California’s solar rebate program comes through as expected.

Read full article in the Desert Sun

Posted in: California News: State & Local Government / CPUC / CSS , Tagged: , , ,

A Revolutionary Roadmap for California’s Distributed Energy Future

August 11, 2015 3:10 pm ,

By Jeff St. John, Greentech Media

California is already changing its utility and energy regulations to incorporate rooftop solar, behind-the-meter energy storage, plug-in electric vehicles and other grid-edge resources, arguably faster than any other state. But a group of utilities and energy industry members have ideas for even more radical transformations ahead.

On Tuesday, the Advanced Energy Economy Institute released a report that calls for California regulators to consider entirely new ways for its major utilities to invest in and operate a distributed energy resource-rich grid, and how to get paid for it. The report, Toward a 21st Century Electricity System in California, lays out a laundry list of concepts that could help utilities shed their institutional need for investing in traditional generation and grid infrastructure, and encourage them to embrace customer-owned and third-party-controlled distributed energy resources (DERs) as an alternative.

The ideas aren’t that novel in and of themselves. What’s more noteworthy is the list of participants in the working group that created the document. That list includes California utilities Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, as well as DER providers like SolarCity, Stem, SunPower, Enphase, EnerNOC, ChargePoint and SunEdison, which have at times sparred with the state’s utilities over how to balance utility and third-party interests when it comes to distributed energy.

Read full article from Greentech Media

Related article: Report—Incentives hold back clean energy (The San Diego Union Tribune)

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