Type Public Company Website www.vivintsolar.com Headquarters Lehi, Utah, United States Number of employees 5,000 | Traded as NYSE: VSLR CEO David Bywater (May 2016–) Founded 2011 Number of locations 60 | |
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Key people David Bywater, President and CEO
Todd Pedersen, Board Member
Alex Dunn, Board Member Stock price VSLR (NYSE) US$ 2.95 +0.15 (+5.36%)3 Apr, 4:02 PM GMT-4 - Disclaimer Subsidiaries Solmetric, Vivint Solar Provider, LLC Profiles | ||
Vivint Solar, Inc. is an American solar energy company. Vivint Solar went public in 2014. Vivint Solar is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It was launched in 2011 by its parent company Vivint, Inc. as a solar electricity provider that designs, installs, and maintains the residential photovoltaic system.
Contents
Vivint Solar operates in 15 regions of the U.S. (Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington, D.C.), with expansive marketing programs in those markets. According to GTM Research, Vivint Solar was the number two residential solar installer in the United States in 2013, and maintaining its No. 2 position as of the end of 2015. It has installed over 40,000 solar panel systems as of the end of March 2015. Several states have high potential solar growth, allowing for as much as 74% of the electricity needs from solar panel only. Newer types of solar panel currently under development might increase this still further.
The company is considered to be a green home technology company and is the fastest growing solar energy company in the U.S. which uses the power purchase agreement (PPA) model. It uses fleet vehicles carrying the traditional Vivint orange coloration.
In February 2015, Vivint Solar broke ground on a new corporate campus in Lehi, Utah near Thanksgiving Point, and began operating from there in May 2016. This five-story steel-construction high-rise is ultra-modern, and provides cafeteria service for its employees like its parent Vivint's corporate headquarters.
Vivint Solar's current CEO is David Bywater, who was announced as an interim replacement for Greg Butterfield in May 2016, following Butterfield's resignation. Subsequently he was elevated to President and CEO in December, 2016.
Approach
The company installs solar panels at no cost to the homeowner, usually via a power purchase agreement (PPA). Vivint Solar owns, installs, and maintains solar panels on customers’ homes in exchange for customers agreeing to purchase the solar energy their panels produce. Customers do not pay for installation; in lieu of this the company makes its money by selling back to the customers the energy produced, for the life of the contracts, at rates that are initially substantially lower than their previous electric utility charges. Vivint Solar’s customers purchase energy or lease solar energy systems based on one of two types of long-term contracts—a PPA or a lease. In the PPA structure, customers pay a fee per kilowatt hour based on the amount of electricity the solar energy system actually produces. In the lease structure, the customer’s monthly payment is fixed based on a calculation that takes into account expected solar energy generation. The lease includes a production guarantee under which Vivint Solar agrees to make a payment to the customer if the leased system does not meet the guaranteed production level.
Most of Vivint Solar's growth has come from door-to-door sales.
Corporate history
In October 2011, home automation company Vivint, Inc. started and incorporated a new, solar division of the company, Vivint Solar. In November 2012, the Blackstone Group acquired a controlling interest in Vivint, Vivint Solar, and 2GIG Technologies for in excess of $2 billion.After the Blackstone acquisition, the solar division evolved and became Vivint Solar, LLC., a separate, but related company.
In October 2014, Vivint Solar opened for public trading on the New York Stock Exchange. In July 2015, SunEdison announced plans to buy Vivint Solar for $2.2 billion USD. In March 2016, Vivint Solar announced that the SunEdison deal had been terminated, and that the company was suing SunEdison for a "willful breach" of the planned merger. SunEdison is currently in bankruptcy (January 2017), and Vivint Solar is one of many creditors. Due to other financing arrangements, Vivint Solar is expected to enter 2017 stronger than before.
In May 2016, Greg Butterfield stepped down as CEO and Cameron Tanner stepped down as Chief of Staff of Vivint Solar. David Bywater was announced as interim CEO while the board searched for a permanent replacement for Butterfield. After proving himself, David Bywater was subsequently named by the Board of Directors as the permanent replacement in December 2016.