Sunnova Q1 customer additions decrease, to rely on ‘lease and PPA customers’ in 2024

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email
Sunnova added 27,000 new customers in the first quarter of 2024, the third consecutive quarter in which new customer additions fell. Image: Sunnova.

US residential solar installer Sunnova’s new customer additions continued to drop in the first quarter of 2024, but its adjusted EBITDA increased by over 200%.

In Q1, Sunnova added only about 27,000 new customers, bringing the total customer count to 438,500 as of 31 March. Customer additions have now dropped for three consecutive quarters, down from 39,000 in Q2 2023, the highest since Sunnova’s acquisition of SunStreet in April 2021. The company aimed to add between 140,000 and 150,000 customers in 2024, down from previous predictions of 185,000-195,000. 

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Unlock unlimited access for 12 whole months of distinctive global analysis

Photovoltaics International is now included.

  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Unlimited digital access to the PV Tech Power journal catalogue
  • Unlimited digital access to the Photovoltaics International journal catalogue
  • Access to more than 1,000 technical papers
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

“While we expect flat growth in overall customer additions in 2024, we still expect the number of megawatts we deployed this year to increase. This is due to a shift in our expected customer mix in 2024 as we refocus our capital expenditure investment on core adaptive energy customers,” said John Berger, chairman and CEO of Sunnova. 

The company’s solar additions in 2024 will be “much more heavily weighted towards lease and power purchase agreement (PPA) customers”, according to Berger. 

Graph showing quarterly change in new Sunnova customers. Credit: PV Tech

Sunnova’s narrowed its net loss to US$70 million in Q1 2024, down from US$81.1 million in Q1 2023. Adjusted EBITDA was US$46.4 million for Q1 2024, compared to US$14.6 million for Q1 2023. Sunnova said this increase was primarily the result of investment tax credit sales, which began in Q3 2023.

Looking ahead, the company’s expected adjusted EBITDA in 2024 will be between US$350 million and US$450 million. 

“During the first quarter we acted on several initiatives such as rebalancing our capital expenditure budget and updating our pricing that will continue to bolster our cash generation. Our ongoing progress gives us confidence in our ability to increase our cash efficiency, giving us conviction in our cash generation outlook for 2025 and beyond,” Berger added. 

Conference call transcript from Seeking Alpha.

7 October 2025
San Francisco Bay Area, USA
PV Tech has been running an annual PV CellTech Conference since 2016. PV CellTech USA, on 7-8 October 2025 is our third PV CellTech conference dedicated to the U.S. manufacturing sector. The events in 2023 and 2024 were a sell out success and 2025 will once again gather the key stakeholders from PV manufacturing, equipment/materials, policy-making and strategy, capital equipment investment and all interested downstream channels and third-party entities. The goal is simple: to map out PV manufacturing in the U.S. out to 2030 and beyond.
21 October 2025
New York, USA
Returning for its 12th edition, Solar and Storage Finance USA Summit remains the annual event where decision-makers at the forefront of solar and storage projects across the United States and capital converge. Featuring the most active solar and storage transactors, join us for a packed two-days of deal-making, learning and networking.
25 November 2025
Warsaw, Poland
Large Scale Solar Central and Eastern Europe continues to be the place to leverage a network that has been made over more than 10 years, to build critical partnerships to develop solar projects throughout the region.
16 June 2026
Napa, USA
PV Tech has been running PV ModuleTech Conferences since 2017. PV ModuleTech USA, on 16-17 June 2026, will be our fifth PV ModulelTech conference dedicated to the U.S. utility scale solar sector. The event will gather the key stakeholders from solar developers, solar asset owners and investors, PV manufacturing, policy-making and and all interested downstream channels and third-party entities. The goal is simple: to map out the PV module supply channels to the U.S. out to 2027 and beyond.

Read Next

June 30, 2025
Heliene has completed the sale of Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credits in association with Minnesota-based U.S. Bank.
June 30, 2025
Voting on the US tax reconciliation bill is expected to begin in the Senate today, following a draft published on Friday that hit clean energy tax credits hard.
June 30, 2025
US clean energy developer Clearway Energy Group has received corporate credit facilities over US$1 billion.
June 30, 2025
Australian module manufacturer Tindo Solar has secured a 30MW solar module supply agreement to power Australia's first "net zero pipeline”.
June 27, 2025
Renewables investment platform Nexwell Power has signed a round of power purchase agreements (PPAs) with “one of the largest” US tech companies for solar PV capacity to be built in Spain.
Premium
June 27, 2025
PV Talk: '2024 was a transformational year in terms of energy policy,' says Monika Paplaczyk ahead of this year's Clean Power 2030 Summits.

Subscribe to Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Webinars
June 30, 2025
10am PST / 6pm BST
Solar Media Events
July 1, 2025
London, UK
Solar Media Events
July 1, 2025
London, UK
Media Partners, Solar Media Events
July 2, 2025
Bangkok, Thailand
Media Partners, Solar Media Events
September 2, 2025
Mexico City, Mexico