In an effort to expand its customer base, SolarCity, the largest U.S. rooftop solar developer, has signed a new marketing deal with satellite pay-TV broadcaster DirecTV to promote its residential solar business.
As part of the agreement, DirecTV technicians will peddle SolarCitys rooftop installations and leasing deals to pay-TV subscribers in major markets where the solar company is currently active.
The companies announced the marketing deal on Wednesday at DirecTVs California Broadcast Center facility in Long Beach, where SolarCity recently installed a 1 MW PV system.
On the same day of that announcement, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a civil lawsuit against DirecTV in California federal court accusing the satellite-TV giant of engaging in deceptive advertising. DirecTV, which is in the process of being acquired by telecom giant AT&T pending a review by federal antitrust regulators, has denied the charges. The FTC is seeking a court order to permanently bar DirecTV from continuing such practices and is also seeking unspecified damages for consumers.
SolarCity installs residential and commercial PV systems at little to no upfront cost to customers who sign long-term contracts to buy the electricity from the company.
The group, which saw its net loss last year grow from $151.7 million in 2013 to $375.2 million, is investing most of its revenue into new solar installations that will generate long-term sales. The company, which currently has 190,000 customers in the U.S., is looking to increase that figure to 1 million by 2018.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.