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$300 million US solar lease facility created

Clean Power Finance, Morgan Stanley subsidiary, MS Solar Solutions Corp., and Main Street Power Company have created a new U.S. solar lease facility, which will provide funding for up to US$300 million worth of projects.

Californian roofs are increasingly sporting third-party owned installations such as this one in San Jose.

NREL/Dennis Schroeder

The MySolar residential solar lease facility, the third such finance facility available to Clean Power Finance’s U.S. network of over 1,550 solar professionals, will initially be made available to homeowners in the states of Arizona and California. The solar professionals will offer the leases via solar sales software platform, CPF Tools.

"Zions Energy Link, part of Zions Bancorporation, is the first member of a syndicate of debt providers to the MySolar residential solar lease facility," said the company in a statement released. Jonathan W. (J.W.) Postal, senior vice president of Main Street Power added, "The MySolar program will be the largest residential solar investment facility in the nation and can help save consumers millions of dollars in electricity payments, create thousands of solar jobs and further the easy adoption of solar for thousands of homeowners around the country."

Editor, Jonathan Gifford covers the solar leasing market in the May edition of pv magazine. In it, he writes that in October of last year, PV Solar Report published findings showing that in California, solar lease or third-party owned installations outnumbered those financed by homeowners in 2011 for the first time. Sunrun, Sungevity and SolarCity are three of the most prominent solar lease companies in the U.S.

Furthermore, in a recent study by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), analysts discovered that homeowners in less affluent neighborhoods are cashing in on solar leases. "The new business model lets homeowners save money the very first month, rather than breaking even a decade after an initial investment of $5,000 to $10,000," they said. In particular, they found that southern California is displaying impressive growth.

The study identified that those investing outright in solar systems had an average household income of $150,000 or more, while those undertaking solar leases had an average income of $100,000 or more.