US residential solar and storage company Sunrun has published its financial results for the third quarter of this year, which include the installation of 258.2MW of new solar capacity, and a 131% year-on-year increase in installed storage capacity.
The results, covering the quarter ending 30 September, are encouraging for the company, which added 239.8MW of new capacity in the first quarter of this year, and 296.6MW in the second quarter. While the third quarter capacity additions were down on the previous quarter, Sunrun remains on track to install more than 1GW of new solar capacity in 2023.
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The company reported the same trend in customer additions, with 32,413 new customers in the first quarter, 39,755 in the second and 33,806 in the third, pushing the company’s total customer base above 900,000. Sunrun also added 19% more customers in the third quarter of 2023 than in the third quarter of 2022, and the company’s continued growth in this area demonstrates sustained growing interest in domestic solar installations in the US.
“We have sharpened our focus on cash generation and continue to execute a customer-first, sustainable growth strategy that does not require equity funding,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. “We are using challenges from this macroeconomic environment to accelerate our leadership position and tighten our operations.”
Powell also noted that Sunrun is “rapidly transitioning to a storage-first company,” which would be a significant departure from the company’s background in residential solar power generation. The company’s dramatic increase in storage capacity installations from 2022 to 2023 suggests that it is investing considerably in this aim, and this is evident in its storage attachment rates, and the percentage of new solar installations built with battery storage systems.
The company’s storage attachment rates reached 33% in the third quarter of this year, with Sunrun noting that some “new sales” have an attachment rate as high as 40%. Wood Mackenzie reported that, in the first quarter of this year, just 11.1% of all new residential solar systems in the US were built with storage systems, down from an all-time peak of just over 12% in 2022, and Sunrun’s attachment rate is much higher than the national average.
Crucially, Sunrun’s storage plans are focused on regions where solar and storage are already commonplace, most notably California, which, according to Wood Mackenzie, was one of four regions that accounted for 79% of the total solar-plus-storage market in the US in 2022. Sunrun’s attachment rate in California is above 85%, and the company’s ability to expand its storage business in a mature and lucrative market could be a positive sign of its long-term prospects.
“We have taken deliberate go-to-market optimisation actions, including repositioning geographic mix, sales route mix and product mix as we transition to a storage-first company,” said Sunrun chief financial officer Danny Abajian.