Latest / The Buyout Show with Fexingo: Private Equity, Roll-Ups, and Business Acquisitions / How Private Equity Is Buying Up Rooftop Solar Installers
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've spent the last twenty episodes looking at how private equity is rolling up everything from vet clinics to wedding venues. And a listener named Derek wrote in — he's a solar salesman in Phoenix — and he said, 'you guys haven't talked about rooftop solar installers. That's where the money is moving now.' He's right. Luna: I've seen the numbers. Residential solar installations were up something like 40 percent in 2024, and then another big jump last year. Lucas: Exactly. And where you see that kind of growth in a fragmented industry — there are thousands of local installers across the U.S., most with fewer than fifty employees — private equity sees a roll-up opportunity. The playbook is the same one you've heard us describe for dental practices or car washes, but the solar version has its own wrinkles. Luna: So give me a concrete example. Who's actually doing the buying? Lucas: The name to know is SolarCraft. They're a platform company backed by a mid-market private equity firm called Ara Partners. Over the past eighteen months, SolarCraft has acquired seven regional residential solar installers — companies in California, Texas, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and New Jersey. Before the roll-up, SolarCraft was a single installer in Northern California doing about 15 million in annual revenue. Now they're on pace for something like 180 million. Luna: That's a twelve-times revenue jump in a year and a half. What's Ara paying for these companies? Lucas: Solar installers historically trade at 5 to 7 times EBITDA. But when you're buying them as part of a platform — bundling them with a central back office, a shared supply chain, and a national sales funnel — the multiples go up to 8 to 10 times. Ara is effectively paying a premium for the consolidation thesis, not for any single company's standalone value. Luna: And the thesis is what exactly? Economies of scale on hardware? Lucas: Partly. If you're buying panels and inverters for a hundred installers instead of one, you get a better price from manufacturers like Qcells or Enphase. But the bigger piece is recurring revenue. Every solar installation comes with a monitoring service — typically 10 to 15 dollars a month per customer — and a 25-year power purchase agreement if the customer leases instead of buying. That's an annuity stream. Private equity loves annuities. Luna: Right, because a roll-up of local installers gives you both the upfront installation margin and the long-term contract cash flow. But there's a risk I keep wondering about: net metering policies. States like California and Florida are reducing the credits utilities pay for rooftop solar exports. If the economics get worse for homeowners, the installation market could shrink. Lucas: That's the central tension. California's Net Energy Metering 3.0, which took effect in 2023, cut the export credit by roughly 75 percent compared to the old rules. Installations in California dropped 40 percent in the first year after that change. SolarCraft and other consolidators are betting that national growth — Texas, Florida, the Northeast — will offset California's slowdown. But if other states follow California's lead, the whole model gets squeezed. Luna: And there's the federal Investment Tax Credit — 30 percent, set to step down in 2027 if Congress doesn't extend it. A big chunk of the homeowner ROI depends on that credit. Lucas: That's the other cliff. The current law takes the ITC from 30 percent down to 26 percent in 2027, then 22 percent in 2028, then zero for residential in 2029. Private equity firms are modeling their returns on the assumption that Congress will extend it — or at least phase it more slowly. But that's not guaranteed. Luna: Look, these conversations — we put them together because we find them interesting, and it sounds like a lot of you do too. And a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small thing that makes a real difference. No ads, no sponsors — just listener support. So if that works for you, great. Luna: Back to solar. Lucas, you mentioned Ara Partners — are there other PE firms making big bets? Lucas: A few. One is HPS Investment Partners, which backed a roll-up called Sunrun's dealer network — Sunrun itself is public, but they've been acquiring their own franchise dealers. Another is Generate Capital, which is more infrastructure-focused — they bought a string of commercial solar installers. But the most aggressive is probably Ara, because they're going after residential pure-play. Luna: And what's the exit? Ara can't hold these forever. Is the plan to sell SolarCraft to a larger strategic — maybe SunPower or Tesla — or take it public? Lucas: I think the most likely path is a sale to a larger public solar company. SunPower has been shrinking — they filed for bankruptcy in 2024 and emerged as a smaller company. They could use a consolidated installer network. Tesla has its own solar business, but it's been inconsistent. A platform like SolarCraft with 180 million in revenue and a clean fleet of local brands would be an attractive bolt-on. Luna: But if the public market appetite for solar is weak — and it has been, with the Invesco Solar ETF down something like 40 percent from its 2023 high — an IPO might be tough. Lucas: Exactly. That's the risk on the exit side. Private equity needs a liquid market to sell into. If solar stocks are out of favor, they might have to hold longer, or sell at a lower multiple. The arbitrage only works if you can eventually flip the platform at a higher multiple than you paid for the pieces. Luna: Let's talk about the homeowner experience. When a local installer gets bought by a pe backed platform, what changes? Lucas: In the short term, not much. The brand usually stays the same — SolarCraft keeps the local names like 'Desert Solar' or 'Sunshine State Solar' because that local trust matters. But the sales process gets centralized. You call one number, and the lead gets routed to a national call center. The installation crew is still local, but the scheduling, financing, and permitting are handled by a central operations team. Luna: That can be good — maybe faster turnaround, standardized pricing. But it can also feel impersonal. And if the central team is optimizing for margin, they might push customers toward financed deals with higher interest rates. Lucas: That's exactly the criticism. Consumer advocacy groups have flagged that some pe owned solar installers are offering loans with dealer fees embedded — effectively marking up the interest rate. A typical solar loan might have a 5 percent dealer fee added to the principal, which the customer doesn't always see. It's legal, but it's not transparent. Luna: And the installer gets a commission from the lender. So the roll-up creates an incentive to sell financed deals over cash — because the platform captures both the installation margin and the finance fee. Lucas: Right. And that's where the private equity playbook can create friction with the customer experience. The best installers in the industry focus on doing a great installation and earning referrals. The roll-up model is more about volume and recurring revenue. Those two cultures don't always mesh. Luna: So what happens to the independent solar installer who chooses not to sell? Can they survive against a pe backed competitor that can buy panels cheaper and spend more on marketing? Lucas: It's harder. A local shop that does 3 million in revenue and runs on word of mouth — they can't match the cost of goods that SolarCraft gets from Qcells. And they can't compete on Google Ads. SolarCraft is probably spending 2 to 3 million a year on digital marketing alone. A small shop might spend 50 thousand. The independents have to differentiate on service quality and local reputation. Luna: That's the classic tension in any roll-up. The consolidator offers efficiency and scale, but the independent offers trust and flexibility. In a commodity-like service — and solar installation is becoming commoditized — scale usually wins on price. Lucas: Unless policy changes disrupt the math. If the ITC steps down and net metering gets worse, the total addressable market shrinks. Then the pe backed platforms — with their debt loads and their high EBITDA targets — could be the ones struggling. The lean independents might actually survive better because they have less overhead. Luna: That's the irony. The same policy risks that make the roll-up seem smart — because scale can absorb regulatory shocks — are also the risks that could break the roll-up. Lucas: Yeah. It's a bet on policy stability. And that's never a sure thing.