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Vivint Solar Inc (VSLR)
Q4Â 2018 Earnings Conference Call
March 05, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
See all our earnings call transcripts.
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good afternoon. My name is Kenzy, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q4 2018 Financial Results Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)
Rob Kain, you may begin.
Rob Kain -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to Vivint Solar's fourth quarter 2018 financial results conference call. Joining me today to talk about our financial results are David Bywater, our Chief Executive Officer; and Dana Russell, our Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast and a supplemental investor deck is available on the Investor Relations section of the Vivint Solar website at investors.vivintsolar.com.
In addition, we will be discussing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures during today's call. We have provided non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliations in our earnings press release that was issued earlier today, and this press release is also available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Please note that a replay of this call will be available within a few hours of the call today and available until March 31, 2019. After management's remarks, we will host a Q&A session.
During today's call, some of the statements we will be making constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding our guidance and our expectations for our business, finances, operations and markets. Accordingly, we wish to caution you that such statements are just estimates based on current expectations and assumptions regarding future events and business performance, and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
We refer you to the registration statements and periodic reports that we file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, which are available on our website and identify important factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections and other forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation and expressly disclaim the obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.
With that, I will turn the call over to David.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Good afternoon, everyone. Let me begin by stating that I believe we met or exceeded our corporate objectives in 2018 and delivered what we committed to our shareholders, our customers and our employees. In the fourth quarter, we installed 54 megawatts, growing 22% year-over-year. For the full year, we installed 196 megawatts, returning to solid growth on a full year basis.
More importantly, we did so while increasing our unit margins by 79% from 2017 and generating $188 million in estimated margin. We also added substantially to our cash position and put the company in a great position to capitalize on safe harbor and channel expansion opportunities in 2019. Returning to growth while improving unit economics was a key focus for us in 2018. A key component to this effort was strategic investments in our dealer program and inside sales. For the fourth quarter these channels represented 24% of our installation volume and will continue to be a key area of expansion for us in 2019.
I'm also particularly pleased that our growth in 2018 essentially cured -- occurred in markets with the most advantageous system economics. This was a result of concerted management focus and actions on concentrating our sales activities in our most favorable markets. The sales momentum we are experiencing will require continued focus and management to assure we remain a clear leader in the most advantageous markets. We are also excited about the prospects of creating other customer acquisition models and access new and existing markets in more profitable ways in 2019 and beyond.
As important as growth is, it is important to operate with the right unit economics, performance and quality. It is easy to grow for growth sake without regard to profit or long-term sustainability or customer satisfaction. That kind of growth violates our core principles and values, and is a trade-off we are not willing to make. Over the past year, we have done much to improve our profitability. As you might remember, at the beginning of 2018, we introduced our dynamic pricing program, which provides increased sales incentives to our sales force for finding systems with the best attributes.
Although, it increases our customer acquisition costs, the improvement in system attributes more than offsets the increase in costs. In addition, we worked hard on improving the efficiencies of our operation teams and saw improvements in our installation unit cost. As a result of these activities plus others, we have increased our unit margins by 79% in 2017, as I mentioned earlier. This is a significant accomplishment and we believe we can continue to improve our unit margins in 2019.
Throughout 2018, we have discussed the importance of diversifying our sales channels and working with independent dealers. We have been delighted by the growing list of dealers that value how we service the market and how we help their teams to be more effective as we utilize our sales tools and sales support resources. As we have discussed previously, these new channels generate valuable sales diversity and our dealer program allows us to capture sales volume for which we did not historically compete.
We made significant strides in 2018 and have put a strong foundation in place for 2019. We believe our performance will be quite strong again this year and our expectations remain high. The residential solar market continues to be a robust, with increasing customer awareness and favorable regulatory support for renewable energy in many states.
Let me elaborate on several of the goals we have set for this year. First, as I mentioned earlier, we intend to grow above market growth rates. After reviewing industry forecast for the US residential solar market, we think the market will grow around 10%. Customers are demanding clean, reliable energy and we believe our high quality standards and customer support separates us from the rest of the industry.
We continue to increase our marketing efforts, telling our story and raising our voice to protect the industry and homeowners, so they are better educated and capable of making a more informed decision. We believe we lead the industry in consumer protection by ensuring every customer has recorded sales verification call of the key contractual terms and the ability to cancel a contract at any time before installation work.
Second, we are continuing to diversify our routes to market. Earlier I spoke about the progress we have made with our inside sales teams and the independent sales dealers. This year we will begin to benefit from our partnerships with new homebuilders. To-date, we have signed contracts with six of the largest California builders and are in ongoing discussions with others. Installing on new homes provides a number of advantages for us. It allows us to reach new customer segment with first time homebuilders. It also is a more efficient installation process.
Finally, it should help us lower our customer acquisition costs. Although, the new home solar mandate does not start until 2020, we have already begun installing on new homebuilders. The volume is small at this point, while we work on ensuring our processes run smoothly and efficiently for both the end customer and our partners. However, we believe this channel will become more meaningful as the year progresses and we get closer to the mandates start date.
We are also starting to work with major retailers to offer their customers residential solar. Currently, we are working on expanding our partnership with Home Depot and have ongoing discussions with a number of others. We believe this type of partnership will provide a new touch point for us to reach potential customers. We are excited about the possibilities this channel presents for us.
However, we are in the beginning phases and we believe we will see modest volumes as we build processes and ramp-up this program. We believe that diversifying our routes to market will allow us to reach more customers with a lower overall customer acquisition costs. Although, we are encouraged with the progress we have made, with our inside sales and third-party sales dealer initiatives, we believe there is still significant room for further expansion of our channels.
Finally, Vivint Solar remains deeply committed to leading the residential solar industry when it comes to safety, security and peace of mind for homeowners, who are investing in the clean energy system they expect to last 20 to 30 years. We have installed solar on over 150,000 homes and are -- and with quality as a top priority, we are happy to share our knowledge with others to help set standards as the industry matures.
Vivint Solar's quality focus in which our internal standards often exceed code requirements for solar panel installations to 22 states in which we operate, is helping set the tone for the industry at large. Recently the Solar Energy Industries Association, the National Trade Association of the US Solar Energy industry, turned to Vivint Solar when it was developing industry best practices. The SEIA Quality Assurance Working Group incorporated our guidelines in its residential installation Best Practices Guide and was -- that was released earlier this year.
In recognition of our track record of quality, Vivint Solar also recently received the 2019 Quality Solar Installer designation from the New York State Energy Research & Development Agency. To the best of our knowledge, no one else in the industry has as rigorous a program as Vivint Solar and it is excited to be able to share this with the broader industry.
With that, let me turn the call over to Dana.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
Thanks, David. Let me start by taking a few minutes to talk about our operating metrics. We're introducing some new metrics and making a few changes to some of the old ones. I believe the new information we include in the investor deck will help everyone better understand the financial condition of the company, simplify the analysis needed and provide a straightforward way to review our performance.
The metrics will also allow better comparison to peers in the marketplace and help identify key measures that are recorded in our financial statements in a way that shows the value we're generating. We've listened to many of your comments, reviewed the metrics and financial information of others, and sought to present our metrics in a digestible way that simplifies the work involved to understand the basic economics of our business.
We think there are several things that every investor seeks to understand. This includes understanding the basic economics of the projects we invest in, which starts by showing how much project value we create versus the cost to create that value on a per unit basis. We're changing our cost per watt methodologies, so that we no longer divide the portion of our sales and marketing costs that are recognized in the period they are generated by bookings. Rather we are dividing all our cost by the megawatts we install in the quarter. Using this new methodology, our cost per watt for the fourth quarter was $3.18, which is higher than the previous cost per watt calculation, which would be $3.12. We believe this new method simplifies the calculation and provides an accurate reflection of our unit cost.
Next, we're introducing a project value metric for our PPA and lease systems. Project value represents the value we expect to receive from a system over its lifetime discounted by 6%. Specifically, this quantifies the present value from customer cash flows, payments from tax equity partners and incentives, less expected operating and maintenance expenses and future payments to our tax equity partners. For the fourth quarter of 2018, our project value for PPA and lease systems is estimated to be at $4.42 per watt. This is up 19% over the fourth quarter of 2017 and is reflective of the improvement in system attributes and state mix that we've previously discussed.
We are also introducing estimated margin and unit margin metrics to our quarterly reporting package. To estimate our margin, we take our estimated project value, multiply it by the PPA and lease megawatts installed. We add our systems sales revenue to arrive at total value created in the quarter. From this, we subtract the costs required to generate this value to arrive at our margin. The margin divided by total megawatts installed in the quarter represents our estimated unit margin for the quarter or net present value per watt. For the fourth quarter, unit margins were at $1.4 per watt and net value created at $57 million. For additional details on changes to our operating metrics and to see these metrics applied to prior periods, please see our fourth quarter investor deck that is on the Investor Relations portion of our website.
With our focus on the most profitable markets and improving the efficiency of our organization, we increased our net retained value by $82 million in the quarter. On a per share basis, this represents $9.20, up from $7.47 in the fourth quarter a year ago. The value we're creating can also be seen in our cash and restricted cash balances. We've been cash flow positive for some time. In 2016, our cash balances increased by $16 million. In 2017, it improved by $31 million and in 2018 they increased by $136 million. These steady increases include project debt and it's our business practice to monetize system cash flows to enable us to invest in new systems to continue to grow the business.
Our debt is a ratio to contracted retained value is on par with our peers in the industry. We feel very positive about the capital structure of business and we believe we'll remain cash flow positive, given our current business practices before considering using any capital to safe harbor equipment in the future.
Given our strong financial position, we see safe harbor as an opportunity to expand our margins as the ITC begins to step down in 2020. The opportunity does come with cost and potential risks that we're carefully considering. For instance, the equipment that we purchased to extend the ITC could become out of date or be purchased at lower prices in the future in negating some or all of the benefit of the safe harbor. However, we do believe that safe harbor represents a unique opportunity for a small number of organizations with the capital strength to make the necessary investments. We're planning to participate in the safe harbor program and view it as a competitive advantage. There are a couple of things we are in the process of working through and evaluating how to approach safe harbor and equipment.
First, we're under way with the review on what amount of capital can be provided by investors and at what cost, versus what capital is available or necessary from Vivint Solar. We believe to fully mitigate the decline of the ITC from 2020 to 2022, we would need to buy at least 5% of the fair market value of the systems we expect to deploy and retain ownership, which would require a substantial investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Second, we're working with vendors to understand, how much equipment we could possibly purchase over what timeframes without creating price increases. We are hopeful that an ITC extension may be possible, but we are well-positioned to take advantage of the ITC safe harbor and we'll be taking steps in the near future to maximize its benefits. We'll provide further information later in the year on our strategy and product to utilizing the safe harbor program.
Our balance sheet is strong with $291 million in cash and restricted cash, our capital structure is in great shape with capacity of $325 million in the aggregation facility and committed tax equity agreements that should take us well into 2019. We expect our first quarter install volume to be 43 megawatts to 45 megawatts. We also expect to be able to grow beyond market growth rates for 2019 and anticipate growth of 15%.
As discussed, some of this growth will be the result of new channels with retail partners and homebuilders. We're currently investing in new routes to market and building programs, technology and teams to support homebuilders, retail channels and further investing in dealer programs. Some of this investment is occurring prior to significant installations from these routes. Therefore, we anticipate our first quarter 2019 cost per watt to be between $3.45 and $3.52 under our new methodology. We will not give costs guidance for the full year at this time, but expect to reduce costs throughout the year as volumes increase.
With that, I'll turn the call back to David.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Thank you, Dana. As I conclude my prepared remarks, let me reiterate that we were pleased with Q4 in 2018. In summary, we substantially improved our unit economics with margin improving by 79%. We've returned to solid growth in 2018 and expect to grow around 15% in 2019. Our growth has come in the best solar markets.
We materially solidified our cash position in 2018 with innovative capital market solutions and partnerships. We've never had this stronger balance sheet and capital structure. We materially improved our NPV per watt and believe it validates the value we bring to the share -- to shareholders. We believe our installation quality and consumer protection efforts are best-in-class. And we are expanding into new channels with homebuilders, retail and others, and we believe -- that we believe will bring higher quality growth going forward.
We have followed our core business principles and they have served us well. Although at times they require to make difficult choices, our progress has been steady, resolute and we continue to build the foundation for future success, as our business grows, so it is our commitment to our core business principles, our vision and our values. Our commitment remains the same as we enter into 2019 and we believe we will deliver improved growth, higher performance and greater shareholder returns.
We are committed to bring -- we are committed to being the most sustainable and well run residential solar company in the industry. We continue to adapt to changing market conditions, evolving technology, regulatory considerations, and of course, competition. We firmly believe that we are making the right decisions and the necessary adjustments to capitalize on the vast opportunities in the residential solar market.
With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Hey. Good afternoon. This is actually Eric on for Julien. Can you hear me?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
We can.
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Great. Congrats on the quarter. And I guess, maybe the first thing to discuss with the 15% megawatt deployment growth guidance introduced for 2019. Do you see any -- could you first talk about, what growth drivers in 2019 you see supporting that?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Sure. I'll take a stab at that. This is David. So we have our core business, which is our direct-to-home continues to perform very well. And as I mentioned in my comments, we've been layering in new channels to market. So the independent dealers, we spent a lot of time in 2018, making sure we had a strong foundation and we're doing a good job, with that channel. We see really nice growth coming this year from that. The homebuilders will kick in largely in the back half of the year. So, as I mentioned, we have six of the top 10 homebuilders in California and we're working on others.
We're looking forward to a nice uptick from that, that started to be deployed right now, but it accelerates in Q2 to somewhat in Q3 and Q4. And then the retail relationships that we have. They are just kicking off right now. We are on a strong ramp process right now. And once again, just given the gestation cycle of getting that from account creation to permit, to install takes a little bit of time and so we see that really picking up in the second half of the year.
So those are the ones we've talked about. We're working on other things, but those right there is a lot to chew on and it's requiring a fair bit of investment from the organization to prepare for that and that really gives us our confidence that we'll be able to grow above market growth rates for the year and have a strong 2019.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
And I think I will add a couple of things. The markets are -- that we're in, we think we feel very good about. We feel like we can continue to grow and expand in those markets. We're also opening up a couple new markets. Chicago would be one, so Illinois is the -- a market that we're pretty excited about, that we're seeing -- we expect there is some significant growth in it as well.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
We just need some normal weather.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
Yeah.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
It's been a brutal Q1. So we need some more normal weather and that will be a strong spring and summer push there.
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Got you. And would you say that order growth drivers in 2019 you would view as reoccurring in 2020 and beyond?
Rob Kain -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Yes. You got to earn your business everyday and you guys stay maniacally focused, but all of these, we have every intent to establish relationships that are long lasting in nature and they are reoccurring, but definitely something every day you need to earn that business.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
If anything...
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Got you.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
...I would say that probably expands though, as we think about it, what David talked about was growth with retail and homebuilders and dealers, which we're seeing is going to -- and you talked about that kicking in really the second half of the year. Even though we're seeing activity and seeing that start to materialize in the first half, in 2020, obviously, you can have full year of that. So we will be more prepared with our systems, our processes, our teams and so we should see acceleration of that growth, and have a full year versus maybe more of a partial year, where we don't see that much activity in the first quarter of 2019.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
And what I've really enjoyed about these partnerships, I mean, I think, our current, I know our current channels value this tremendously, but the quality of these partners really value that we own our install teams. They love our commitment to quality and how we can prove that, we do 100% Q&A on everything. They love our -- just the process and the way we go through it. So these are blue chip organizations that require a partner that sees the world the same and controls resources, and has invested the resources and proven those resources out. So I'm very bullish about these great partnerships, appreciate our team is able to bring them to us for us to work on and go execute on, and we love the alignment on how we view the industry and the long-term relationship with these customers, and that we control and improve that we have the quality with long-term contracts.
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Got it. That's very helpful. So you -- just to confirm, you would view both the Home Depot partnership, as well as an upcoming ITC safe harbor plan, supporting incremental growth volumes beyond the 15% guidance introduced with ITC safe harbor, but also providing incremental NPV margins?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Well, we look at the safe harbor as an extension. I think, first and foremost, I think, Dana would agree with that, which is, it allows you to have a longer runway. Those who can participate and take advantage of that, I think, will have a differential opportunity to have better margins than those who are not equipped to do that. So, first, I think, it extends the runway and then relative to certain folks in this industry, you have a differential opportunity. Anything you want to add to that Dana?
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
Well, we mentioned Home Depot specifically, but that weren't, that's not the only party that we're working with and we're optimistic that we're going to have other -- others as well that we will mention later, but we think that there's some real opportunity there for the second half of the year that's beyond what we have mentioned there with Home Depot.
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Got it. That's very helpful. And then, just lastly, in terms of the eight states specifically included in the Home Depot partnership, could you discuss any particular reasoning for why those specific eight states?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
No. Those are the ones that we're starting with and we will continue to push to expand in other states. The beautiful thing about this industry is that its merit-based and you earn the right to expand with any partner that you join and we're very confident that we will expand, as we continue to demonstrate our value. So we're excited about that.
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Are those states exclusive partnerships given our Home Depot's other announced partnership with your peer?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
They are.
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Got it. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Praful Mehta from Citigroup. Your line is open.
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thanks so much. Hi guys.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Hello.
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Hi. So very helpful to have the updated style of presentation, I think, that's helpful. But maybe we just start with the cash flows and you've talked about being cash flow positive. When we look at obviously the cash flow statement from your release and there is obviously tax equity in there as well. So how would you -- when you look at and you say that your positive cash flow in Q4, how are you looking at it? Are there like specific numbers that you are looking at within your cash flow statement that you would say, these are the kind of elements we add or subtract to kind of get to a positive cash flow perspective for the quarter, just so we can get like the historical kind of at least understood from your perspective?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Go ahead.
Rob Kain -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Hey, Praful. This is Rob. Yeah. What much like our peers when we talk about cash flows, given the nature of our business, we say it's our operating cash flows, plus our project financing. So any non-recourse debt against those, our operating assets, plus as you talked about the tax equity. So we want to make those combinations that we talked about being cash flow positive and that goes back to the numbers and Dana's comments that when you look at our cash -- restricted cash balances over the last three years, you can see the increase and it's due to those three components.
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Got you. All right. Understood. And all right, moving from there, maybe just to the value that you create per watt and that's obviously in your updated presentation around the margin created and the project value per watt. As you enter into these new contracts and if we were to think about it from an IRR or a return perspective, how should we think about what kind of returns you're achieving today? You've talked about adding a 19% increase in the value per watt. So if you can us firstly some perspective on what kind of returns you're achieving, and secondly, maybe a little bit on what has helped drive up that value per watt versus what you were achieving before?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Well, I think, for us the metrics that we are -- that we have created there that we are distributing today is going to be a very clear reflection of the margins and the value and those returns, those IRRs, both in aggregate and on a unit basis as we go forward here. So when we think about it before, sometimes the calculation or the calculations that we had before, net retained value, didn't necessarily incorporate the expense structure of the Company, where your net present value per watt is going to incorporate everything.
So it's going to be very transparent on a quarterly basis when you get the results to see whether we're generating business that improves that or detracts from that and so there will be some trade-offs and there will be a little bit of a balance from quarter-to-quarter where it won't be perfectly in line, but we expect to be able to show that and it will be going to be pretty clear.
Some of the routes and some of the markets that we operate in are obviously less valuable than some of the other routes that we operate in. California we have increased our market share and taking market share and that's been a very conscious effort to do that over this past year, and therefore, we've increased the attributes and the returns in the markets and in business solar as a whole. So as we continue to operate the ability for us to maintain or improve that will come as a combination of entering other markets and if those markets have less value, then we have to do that at a lower cost structure.
To perfectly equate that to an IRR or another metric. I think we can -- we could help do that maybe close that gap, but that should give you a very good indication in terms of the kind of returns that we will expect and then from quarter-to-quarter, you'll be able to see what we actually achieve.
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Got you. That's helpful. But just to be specific, is there a range you can provide on what kind of levered IRRs you're achieving on projects, you, let's say, entered into in Q4.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Any thoughts there?
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
Not when it comes to the levered IRR, Praful. But, yeah, we're not -- we haven't been giving out any kind of levered IRR kind of guidance.
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
I got you. Again, I'm just looking for broad ranges, but I understand you want to hold off on that. So I'll follow up maybe to see other ways to help understand returns. I'll just get to my last question then, which is more on the strategic side. And the question is, given the business model and given you've been looking at different ways to highlight value and there always seems to be a disconnect between how you look at value and what the market seems to be attributing in terms of value to your story and the underlying assets. Is there a thought around the strategic review at all and is there broader interest from the private market for assets like yours or any kind of interest in that kind of strategic review directions. So any color on that would be helpful as well.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
I'm not exactly sure.
Rob Kain -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Yes. So, Praful, if you're asking, would we consider doing something with our existing asset base such as selling it to a yield co or would somebody look at it from that kind of perspective, yeah, we don't address or we're not going to comment obviously on any kind of potential M&A opportunities down the road, but I think, partially, what you might be getting at and we saw this last year when we did our forward flow agreement, is there is investor appetite out there to have access to the cash flows from our existing asset base.
So you see it partially in that the project debt markets where the ABS market has been very good for us and for the most part for our peers as well. I think you see it with our -- the forward flow agreement that there was an appetite from investors to participate at that layer, if you will. So, yeah, I think, there is interest there. We'll see how that keeps going. We'll see how the year progresses there but.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
And I think our success in raising capital and being able to generate the funding that we have is indicative of the appetite that folks have out there, it's been very strong. We certainly raised capital at rates that were market leading, I would say, and in amounts that were substantial. We feel very good about that. I think it was also an indication of our quality and the review from partners.
So I don't know, if that's specifically answering the question that you have, but in terms of the way that we think about these assets and the rigor that we put around creating them, we think that there is a very strong appetite for them and continue to be so. We also think the new metrics that we produced here are going to be very valuable in terms of taking a look at the economic -- the underlying economics and take out some of the science and need to do some kind of brain surgery there to come up with answers around what those economics are. We think it's a much simpler way to look at the business.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
Yeah. Let me add...
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thank you. Yeah. No...
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
I think the NPV per watt metric is and how it compares, I think, demonstrates a significant amount of value that we bring. And you can compare that and come to your conclusion. But I just want to echo, I think, I'll just compare the tone and tenure and calls that we have today from a year ago versus two or three years ago and I think that people are telling us that we are definitely doing the right things in driving real value and they appreciate the fact that we really focus on the fundamentals of running the company around value creation.
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Got you. No. I -- like I said, I think, the new disclosure definitely is helpful. Maybe one final point on the PG&E bankruptcy and everything going on in California, given it is such an important piece from a geography perspective. How do you look at that scenario or the PG&E situation playing out, is that generally seen as a positive given any structural challenges to investor-owned utilities could help you get more market share or kind of -- how are you kind of thinking about that evolving and does that help or harm your story?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
First of all, first off, it's unfortunate what happened in California with the fires. We had employees impacted and customers impacted. So that obviously was a sad thing to see. I think it definitely raised the awareness with customers of the need to embrace alternative ways to create energy -- consume energy and if you just look at our growth and where we've grown, California we're growing much, much faster than the industry by far and we think our peer set. I think in our Tier 1 markets and California is one of our Tier 1 markets, I think we actually spent like 36% in Q4.
So that was a really, really strong increase and so we believe that our message resonates well in addition to just kind of used needs and just how real this conversation is in California, from our growth and what happened in California, we're seeing a very strong demand. So fortunately or unfortunately, we think that we'll see a lot more consumers adopt Solar, which is a very fortunate thing. And the reason why it can be unfortunate, but whatever helps us get a larger swath of customers embracing Clean Energy, we welcome. Praful, does that answer your question?
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Great. Yeah. No. That was super helpful. Really appreciate it guys. Thanks.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
You're welcome. Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Luis Amadeo -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Hi. This is actually Luis Amadeo for Colin. Just what are you seeing or expect in terms of racking and labor efficiency or other areas where you expect to drive efficiencies as you go through the year?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Well, I'll begin on some of the efficiencies and then Dana can probably talk specifically around supply chain. But with regards to our operations team, very pleased with the progress they made. We mentioned on some earlier calls that, we're now seeing a large piece of our installs are now being done by three person crews. When we first started 2.5 years ago, I think the vast majority of them were five or six person crews.
So the team continues to find ways to do things more efficiently across our full array of states that we service and doing it with higher quality and higher safety. So proud of the progress they've made and they continue to refine every step of the process and how they pull it off. So how much farther they're going to go on that, I think it's kind of adoption to the full -- to the extent possible and appropriate given the size of systems. Can we get into a higher percentage that are on three man or three person teams. Regard the racking, Dana do you want to talk about that at all?
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
All right. I think a little is speculative in terms of what will be the impact, especially as we explore safe harbor and purchasing equipment and how that might be impacted, I would say that across all the major components that we buy and serve demand and how much of that demand is for 2019 and how much of that's for beyond. But right now, I think, our expectation is that all of the equipment will continue to be more affordable and that we'll see some price declines there, but we think our major routes to other cost improvements would be outside of the equipment area.
Luis Amadeo -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Thank you. That's very helpful. And if I can ask one more, just in terms of cost of capital, what are you seeing and if there are opportunities to refinance the portfolio?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Go ahead.
Rob Kain -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Yeah. I think, at the moment we're pretty locked in on our cost of capital. As Dana mentioned our capital stack is set, given the large transactions we did last year for the most part -- most of our assets are set up in the next couple of years. Definitely when we hit flip points in the funds, things along those lines will definitely be a chance to improve on that a little bit more, as cash flows coming to us improve. And as far as expectations for the rest of the year, we likely won't do any other kind of takeout facilities this year, won't preclude it specifically, but just given the magnitude of the ones we did last year. It leaves a smaller asset pool for doing some kind of take out of our current aggregation facility and if we do want it to be in the latter half of the year, fall or go into the winter time space.
Luis Amadeo -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Okay. That's all I have for now. Thank you very much.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of Philip Shen from Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions. The first one is on the outlook for the market. I think, David, in your prepared remarks you talked about the market growing 10% and you guys are looking for 15%. In some of the checks that we've done, their expectations are getting kind of high per year-over-year growth in 2019. We're hearing 20%, maybe even 30% growth for some certain installers, and it seems like it's not just specific to them, but rather it could be just a strong US resi market in general in 2019. Can you talk to that at all? Are you seeing perhaps the market having the potential to be better in 2019 than in 2018 for a variety of reasons, but is there any truth or do you see any prudence in some of this. Thanks.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Hey, Philip. What did you -- what's your estimation of the increase year-over-year for 2018?
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
In 2018 for resi I'm -- I want to say, it was 15%-ish maybe 13%. So wanted to see if -- for 2019 there could be potential for 20% for the overall market or do you think that's too far afield.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
Well, I'll make a couple -- just a couple of statements there. I think that whatever the market grows at, I think, we can grow at or above those market growth rates. Our expectation as we thought about this and we talked about this is that, that the whole market is not growing at a rate that, first of all in 2018 was above 15% nor in 2019 expected to be above 10%. So and that's in conversations from things that we've seen published and also in discussions with vendors and other who are supplying in the market.
So it's -- it would be interesting to see and we certainly believe that those markets that we concentrate in that we will grow and that will grow above market growth rates, But I haven't seen that data where it would say that the rest of the market grew that fast in 2018 and it would be interesting to see what they are using for 2019, but we are optimistic about the market and we do feel like the overall view and people having more exposure to solar is a good thing, and we'll continue to accelerate that pattern where people will accept it and embrace solar, not only in the markets that are opened today, but in markets that we are not yet in.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
I'll add one thing to that, Philip. I echo what Dana said. Also it's really, really important that our thesis is we grow and also do well in unit economics. So we all experienced 2015 and 2016, where the market grew a bunch of companies into bankruptcy and they were not growing with anything around a positive unit economics. So you're talking about Vivint Solar that primary core belief that we have, which is we're going to grow, we believe we will grow above both market and we're going to do it the right way, with quality and with consumer protection and we're going to do it around taking care of our shareholder's unit margins that are great. We are going to create NPV per watt, that's industry leading or on par with our peers.
So I always approach this conversation with kind of a balanced perspective, not just to grow it. So I can refer you to a bunch of companies that grow for growth sake. You probably won't be covering them in two years, but we're really going to work on making sure we do grow at above market growth rate and provide all the other metrics that you also value in a sustainable well run company.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
I think too Philip, as we think about this, we also try to balance out what it means to a customer. So David talked about the quality and certainly we are also concerned about the savings, not only because we think it's the right thing for the customer, but also because we retain ownership of those assets, and we need that customer to be engaged with and excited about what the value that they're receiving because they buy power from us and we're retaining ownership. And so that also plays into our thought process around how we supply the market and we think we can do things in the right way. We don't think everyone does, but we think it's very important for us to do that, and as David mentioned, protect the company, the customers and shareholders.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
So I hope that helps...
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Great.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
...kind of round our answer there, Philip.
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Yeah, David, that's great. Thank you both for the color and then the candor. As it relates to Dana, I think, you had talked about safe harboring. We're actually hearing that mono perc modules have very tight supply at this point and I'm hearing that the larger players are actually getting access to modules. But -- and would you guys will clearly be in that camp, but to what degree do you think that tightness might impact you in terms of slightly higher pricing from the module side, couple of pennies per watt or something. And would you guys consider for example also shifting to multi or do you think you'll be able to have the supply to stick with the higher efficiency products?
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
That's a good question, Philip. We are, like I said, we're running kind of through the traps on that right now and talking to vendors, suppliers and trying to understand exactly what that dynamic looks like. We do think that the market is reasonably tight and we also believe that we can get quite a few panels if we want them. And then the question is, does that create a price increase?
So, what we don't want to do is to go out there in the marketplace to buy and try to salvage that 4% and then lose more than that as a result of buying in the first year as a result of overpaying for panels. And this was going to be a longer-term program, which is going to last multiple years and we want to do the right thing, and so, but I can't tell you today exactly what that means. I can just tell you that we're doing the analysis and we're talking to all the vendors that we buy from and we feel like we are in a position because of our volumes and because of the kind of company that we are, that people will, that they are and will be willing to work with us.
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Great. And to what degree are you considering safe harboring other types of equipments, specifically inverters? Do you think the safe harbor would be primarily addressed through modules? It seems that pricing doesn't get away for me too much in the value proposition is still there, or do you think there is a meaningful probability that you could actually shift the safe harbor of inverters?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Well, we do think that there can be a shift to some inverters combined with other products or racking or different things as well. We obviously have to meet the threshold of being able to have over 5% of the market value or 5% of the market value of the project initiated. So that requires you to do certain things. The panel certainly gets you there. The inverters combined with something else can get you there. There may be some other considerations there in terms of technology and obsolescence that we'd be thinking through with inverters, but the combination of those is certainly what we're looking at and we think provides alternatives that doesn't just have to be panels.
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Okay. Certainly, that's great. And then, as it relates to NPV per watt, you introduced your new metric there. Can you give us a sense of the outlook of how you -- you have Q1, call it two-thirds of the way through the quarter here. How is that looking on a go-forward basis? Do you see expansion or do you see a more kind of steady state dollar-sh level?
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Well, that's -- yeah, that's...
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Yeah. Thanks.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Yeah. Good question, Philip, and I think, we didn't provide guidance, but we can tell you directionally, it's going to be a little bit, it's going to be lower than it is in the fourth quarter. That's a result of volumes being a bit less than they are in the fourth quarter and our costs being a bit higher. So that's all going to translate to a bit of a lower net present value. So, we expect that to be -- to happen seasonally, because of the way our business runs and right now where the preponderance activity happens with the direct sales people that we have a lot more activity with that group. Outside of what we're talking about with retail and homebuilders and other dealer activity, that we're down in the first quarter and then we accelerate quickly in the second, third quarter and beyond. So you'll see that go down and dip a bit in the first quarter and then you will see that come back up and improve beyond that, that's our expectation.
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Great. That's really good to know. And then -- this is the last question, you recently went through this process of a little bit of a transformation in the way you kind of take on new business. One of the new, I think, things that you guys are doing or adopting and partners effectively where you are not just doing your own direct sales, but you might buy a system from a partner. Can you talk about the number of partners you guys have in place now and what percentage of your megawatts might -- maybe in Q4 or Q1 or perhaps in 2019 might be partner-driven as opposed to inside or direct sales? Thanks.
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
I'll take a crack at that, Phillip, it's David. So we're approaching 100 dealers, which has been great and they -- for us they have to have the same view on how they sell. They have to adhere to our customer protection policies and our install quality metrics. So we're really pleased with the 70 that we have now and approaching 100 as they've been coming on a good clip. So very pleased with that.
We view that the balance of the year that will continue to grow at a great rate. So, I mean, honestly, it's just been building and building and building every quarter and we're encouraged by that. The mix we talked about that inside sales and our independent dealers represent about 25% -- 24%, 25% of our volume in Q4. I expect it will be in that range, maybe more, but we have a lot of different channels coming on; retail to be quite large, homebuilders to be quite large, our direct-to-home that's captive is expected to grow. So we'll see what the differential growth rates over for all will be, but it will be material. It will be a big chunk of our business and I think quite a transformation over the last year plus.
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
It's not a great number, but we'll share that throughout the year.
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
Thanks, David. Thanks for taking all the questions and I'll pass it on.
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Thank you, Philip. Appreciate it.
Operator
And this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
Duration: 55 minutes
Call participants:
Rob Kain -- Vice President of Investor Relations
David H. Bywater -- Chief Executive Officer, President & Director
Dana C. Russell -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
Eric Du -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Praful Mehta -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Luis Amadeo -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Philip Shen -- Roth Capital Partners -- Analyst
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