What happened
Shares of residential solar installer Sunrun Inc. (RUN +5.76%) jumped as much as 14.3% in trading Thursday after reporting better than expected earnings. At 1:30 p.m. EST shares had given back some of their gains but were still up 8.7% on the day.
So what
Solar deployments jumped 12% from a year ago to 90 megawatts, exceeding the company's guidance of 88 MW. More importantly, net present value created increased 21% to $93 million and unlevered NPV per watt was $1.15, the highest in Sunrun's history.
Image source: Getty Images.
CEO Lynn Jurich said that California's solar market is rebounding and about 10% of solar-power systems there now include energy storage. That's a big change for Sunrun and could help drive further value for the company long term.
Now what
Sunrun is benefiting from Tesla's shrinking solar business and may soon take over the No. 1 market share spot in the industry. What's still concerning is that installation costs only fell $0.02 per watt over the past year to $3.34, which means the added value Sunrun is generating is from charging higher prices. Pricing power is a good sign short term, but long term I don't see it as something that's sustainable given the growth of low-cost solar loans and lower-cost local and regional installers. But right now those headwinds don't seem to be affecting Sunrun's business in the least.
