5 Steps to Solar-Powered Profits
Installing security contractors are well positioned to adopt solar photovoltaic (PV) panels into their portfolios and take advantage of increasing opportunities to utilize “green” power alternatives. These solutions are ideal for projects that require a power supply for off-grid, remotely-installed equipment.
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Vivint Bets Its Solar Offering Will Shine
Vivint, a national provider of residential security, energy management and automation solutions, thought so much about the potential for solar power to significantly impact its bottom line that it created an entirely new business during 2011.
The Provo, Utah-based company, formerly APX Alarm, ramped up Vivint Solar in October after it received $75 million in financing from U.S. Bancorp in support of its plan to offer solar installations for homes in New Jersey, Utah, Hawaii and New York.
Namely mark
eted through door-to-door sales, the company installs, monitors and maintains residential solar panels with no upfront costs. Customers agree to a 20-year contract during which they purchase the power generated by the solar panels for a lower rate than utilities charge.
“We approach homeowners who never thought they could get solar and improve their carbon footprint and feel proud about the generation of the power they use,” says Vivint Solar COO Brendon Merkley. “They may not be super familiar with the product, but that is the beauty of the consultative sale. We can present it to them as something that maybe they have not formerly considered but is now obtainable and available to them.”
The solar panels, which are installed on rooftops by Vivint Solar technicians, are designed to generate about 80 percent of a residence’s overall electricity use. The company first marketed its solar platform in New Jersey during the summer and so far has completed about 200 installations. The company’s initial tax-equity fund will finance about 2,400 installations.
“For the time being we are focused mostly on New Jersey, but we are eager to expand to other states that the fund allows,” Merkley says. “This isn’t a product offering we can offer universally nationwide. It is a lot more dependent on local economics.”
Vivint began adding home automation and energy management solutions to its portfolio in 2010, allowing customers to monitor and adjust their homes’ thermostats, lighting and small appliances remotely. Vivint has signed up about 77,000 customers for its home energy management platform. And while solar complements Vivint’s core competencies in providing home services, Merkely says, there currently is no integration between the home automation platform and Vivint Solar’s offering.
“In the future it will be more of a holistic sale that could include complementary products such as an energy management platform integrated with the solar installation,” he says. “That is a product we have not yet developed but we are keen to do so and think it will be very powerful. We wanted to first assure ourselves that the business could stand on its own as a product offering and so we have marketed it almost exclusively independent of home automation.”
Merkley says the company has “toyed around” with a couple of use cases that integrate the security panel with the firm’s other platforms.
“The panel is this beautiful real estate in the home that functions as an in-home display for energy management. It is a perfect opportunity to display the solar power production on that alarm control panel,” he says. “Additionally you can go beyond an information presentation analytics into to more energy automation and efficiencies where you might choose which appliances to run according to different times of the day where the solar array may be producing power opposed to when it’s not.”
— Rodney Bosch
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