New financial tools promise to scale up residential solar

There have been several important milestones in the household solar sector this year. A core group of companies has emerged, all passing the 100,000 sales mark in 2017 and raising significant sums of money. There have also been big new entrants into the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) market such as Engie and Greenlight Planet. Critically, there is now near consensus on the basic principles of the business model, with solar companies converging on an asset financing approach – where the company finances the upfront cost of supplying a solar system and is repaid over a period of time, after which the customer owns the product – which is being backed by new forms of lending.