SunEdison expects strong US Solar growth post-ITC

Major renewable energy development company SunEdison expects significant US market growth post-ITC, contrary to the general view that the US PV market would be hit hard by the tax benefit reduction. 

SunEdison’s CEO, Ahmad Chatila said at the company’s Capital Markets Day that it was targeting an all-in distributed generation (DG) installation cost of only US$1.5/W in 2017, which would enable retail grid parity in over 25 US States.

Chatila noted that its best-in-class fully-loaded OPEX (Operating Expense) would help support the US$1.5/W DG installation cost as well as its highly flexible vertically integrated technology supply chain. 

Marketing, sales, G&A and R&D costs combined are also targeted to reach US$0.40/W in 2017, down from US$0.62/W in the second half of 2014. SunEdison noted that these costs would be reduced to US$0.52/W in 2015.

SunEdison also noted at its Capital Markets Day that it expected significant DG installation growth across markets served in 2015. The company is targeting over 400MW of DG projects in 2015, up from around 150MW in 2014.

Therefore the US PV market and SunEdison in particular are expected to continue to grow strongly after the planned reduction in the ITC.