Opinion
Powell: US utilities view rooftop solar as a threat, creating hurdles
“In the United States, very much so in many jurisdictions throughout the country, certainly in the utility space, it's seen as a threat, not an opportunity, and so when you see it that way, there's more and more hurdles that get created to go through for a cust…”
Insight
Powell: Home battery adoption is driven by emotional security, not economic payback
“I don't think storage, you know, in my experience, is something that, again, it is about, oh, what's my payback? Yes, I mean, do customers always love that if you get a payback on top of it? Like, yay, wahoo, but it's, it is, you know, something at its core th…”
Opinion
Powell: Scaling virtual power plants is a cultural, not technical, challenge
“Well, I mean, I say often culture eats strategy, and I actually think what we have, we Is way more a cultural challenge than a technical challenge. So again, in my experience, there's no end, there's no, like, bottom to the rabbit hole you go down when what yo…”
Opinion
Powell: Orchestrating distributed resources flattens peak grid demand better than legacy infrastructure
“What with distributed Technologies utilized well in a way where you're like this, the conductor of the symphony orchestra of devices, right? You can create the kind of resilience that you could only really dream of and reliability of from a, like, grid perspec…”
Disclosure
Powell: Sunrun aims to become one of the largest US energy providers
“The goal is really to be really one of the largest energy providers in the United States, right? So that we're providing energy, we're providing the acceleration around whole home electrification, electrification of transportation, and we're aggregating all of…”
Insight
Powell: US solar customer acquisition costs stem from complex permitting processes
“When you think of customer acquisition costs, you have to think of the process to getting a customer to installation, so it's not just the process of getting the customer interested in solar, right? It's the customer of really, the cost of getting them through…”
Assertion Supported
Powell: Sunrun has 630,000 customers with about 28,000 battery installs
“We now have, you know, 630,000 customers, and about 28,000 of those have batteries, but it's important to remember a lot of those were in place before really storage became a mainstream product that was being offered in the market.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Powell: Over one-third of new Sunrun solar customers want battery storage
“I would say well over a third of those customers are interested in storage as well when they're going solar.”
Disclosure
Powell: Sunrun is deploying Ford F-150 Lightning bidirectional charging across 50 states
“I think we are solidly in an amazing partnership with Ford on their F-一-fifty Lightning and bringing it to, again, you know, 50 states with this really amazing bi-directional charger that we worked with them on that will allow customers, again, back to, You kn…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Powell: Consumers will increasingly adopt whole-home electrification in one step
“It's not necessarily a one stop. I'm going to do everything in my home, although I think we're going to increasingly see customers do that.”
Assertion Partly supported
Powell: Rooftop solar is the gateway to heat pump and EV adoption
“Solar so much is the gateway to so much more electrification. So what we find is customers that go solar, they do tend to be the first adopters of heat pumps. They then do tend to be the first adopters of electric vehicles, and so they really, so one of the re…”
Assertion Supported
Powell: US residential solar penetration is at 3% of 77M homes
“Like we are at three percent of seventy seven million addressable homes.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Powell: Widespread SolarAPP adoption could significantly unlock solar cost reductions
“So the solar app was one You know, initiative and innovation that, again, now we have to get more and more parties to adopt it, more and more jurisdictions to use it, but it could be a really significant unlock in the context of cost and streamlining of the pr…”
Assertion Supported
Powell: PG&E rates increased 65% since 2011
“PG&E alone has seen a 65% increase in their rates since 2011, right?”
Assertion Supported
Powell: Sunrun operates 12 virtual power plant projects
“Sunrun does have 12 virtual power plant projects in place.”
