SolarCity (SCTY)

[futureproof]

YPE Smart Grid Panel Series: The California Grid Under... Tickets, San Francisco - Eventbrite

This should be an interesting panel discussion on Thursday(24APR). Might be a good introduction to how Solarcity will integrate DG storage with the grid...

update: it is interesting to note that solarcity's speaker Ryan Hanley was just working for PG&E 6 months ago doing grid integration with PG&E's speaker... Hmm... Could there be a possible PG&E/Solarcity partnership on the horizon?

How Californias Biggest Solar Utility Is Tackling the Grid Edge Challenge : Greentech Media
Ryan Hanley - working on Smart Grid Tech | US-Ireland Alliance

 

[futureproof]

http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...e1cdc1/Q1_2014_Supplementary_Slides_Final.pdf

Interesting to read Sunpower installed only 11MWs of residential in Q1 and expects to do 95-100MWs in Q2... maybe I'm not reading it right, but that seems like a huge jump in residential numbers. If that's the case, they have shifted a good amount of resources to residential DG... will have to listen to the conf. call to learn more of the details. Exciting to see the big boys competing(Sunpower/Solarcity). Hopefully, most of the residential effort goes to the US, although it looks like they have good momentum in Europe...

update: they intend to grow residential lease "north of 50%" over 2013 numbers... over all google ITC + Sunpower cash investment will give them funds for the next "6-9 months."

I'm not feeling much of focus in the conf. call on residential area... not feeling a big fight with Solarcity on this front right now... just initial impression though... the slides show a big increase in residential, however, not hearing much from the management on the conf. call.

Still listening to the call... I think the CFO just said cash is doing better then lease right now... now the call has ended abruptly... okay... doesn't give me a strong impression on the lease effort... will have to see how competition with Solarcity pans out over the quarter. Really, didn't even talk about their residential outlook slide either... kind of strange after the big google PR yesterday...

 

[HenryF]

@futureproof Thanks for the updates. Appreciate it. Will check the transcript once it's out on SA. Quite weird that they won't talk about it, after such a big PR splash. From news it wasn't even clear if Google will own the system/lease or if SPWR will.

Google initiative will lease solar panels to consumers

 

[futureproof]

@futureproof Thanks for the updates. Appreciate it. Will check the transcript once it's out on SA. Quite weird that they won't talk about it, after such a big PR splash. From news it wasn't even clear if Google will own the system/lease or if SPWR will.

Google initiative will lease solar panels to consumers

Ha, I just caught this from the link you posted... Lease payments should be "typically lower" then currently utility payment... Doesn't sound too competive to me, but could be just a real safe statement...

from memory, I think they said on the conf call google will be a tax equity investor(150m) and sunpower is going to investment 100m directly to lease installs... Overall, seems a little bit of a hype job, but who doesn't do that, right? Only hope this doesn't turn into a pump and dump post earnings... Might be a continuation with all solars if this turns out to be the case... Lots of money being made on the way up, lots of money being made on the way down... But over the entire year, should see most come in wih nice long returns...

 

[Chickenlittle]

@futureproof Thanks for the updates. Appreciate it. Will check the transcript once it's out on SA. Quite weird that they won't talk about it, after such a big PR splash. From news it wasn't even clear if Google will own the system/lease or if SPWR will.

Google initiative will lease solar panels to consumers

They did discuss it in cc see transcript

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http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...e1cdc1/Q1_2014_Supplementary_Slides_Final.pdf

Interesting to read Sunpower installed only 11MWs of residential in Q1 and expects to do 95-100MWs in Q2... maybe I'm not reading it right, but that seems like a huge jump in residential numbers. If that's the case, they have shifted a good amount of resources to residential DG... will have to listen to the conf. call to learn more of the details. Exciting to see the big boys competing(Sunpower/Solarcity). Hopefully, most of the residential effort goes to the US, although it looks like they have good momentum in Europe...

update: they intend to grow residential lease "north of 50%" over 2013 numbers... over all google ITC + Sunpower cash investment will give them funds for the next "6-9 months."

I'm not feeling much of focus in the conf. call on residential area... not feeling a big fight with Solarcity on this front right now... just initial impression though... the slides show a big increase in residential, however, not hearing much from the management on the conf. call.

Still listening to the call... I think the CFO just said cash is doing better then lease right now... now the call has ended abruptly... okay... doesn't give me a strong impression on the lease effort... will have to see how competition with Solarcity pans out over the quarter. Really, didn't even talk about their residential outlook slide either... kind of strange after the big google PR yesterday...

I believe he said cash was a better deal for the consumer if they had the cash but they offer both to the customer

 

[futureproof]

They did discuss it in cc see transcript

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I believe he said cash was a better deal for the consumer if they had the cash but they offer both to the customer

exactly, doesn't sound like they are promoting the big google lease deal in person... Added to which, they give a blah quote of "typically lower" payment quote from HenryF link.. Not much for a consumer to put confidence in... Indicates to me they don't see lease as a growing part of the business, but will do a PR push on it to get in on the popular conversation going around the net... Seemed to have helped push the stock higher, but there all kinds of reasons anyone could point to for the jump yesterday....

also, Google seemed to be competing for earth day sentiment as apple also highlighted its solar power assets over the past few days as they have with this pr of bringing affordable solar to the masses. Everyone benefits by putting this out when they did...

 

[futureproof]

SunPower CEO: Extremely good Q1 - CNBC

Again, and it's really funny, Werner never once said the word lease, even after the talking heads brought up the google lease deal I think three times... He just said "residential is hot." He also said the company isn't really going to change its strategy, so I'm still holding to they don't think lease will do well for them into the future... This tells me Solarcity won't really be challenged by them in the lease market, which is good for Solarcity.

update: I just watched it again, he did say "lease partners" in his first response...

 

[Chickenlittle]

SunPower CEO: Extremely good Q1 - CNBC

Again, and it's really funny, Werner never once said the word lease, even after the talking heads brought up the google lease deal I think three times... He just said "residential is hot." He also said the company isn't really going to change its strategy, so I'm still holding to they don't think lease will do well for them into the future... This tells me Solarcity won't really be challenged by them in the lease market, which is good for Solarcity.

update: I just watched it again, he did say "lease partners" in his first response...

disagree. He stated they offer lease or sale. He also said in response to question of why they didn't raise guidance more that they can't book profit right away because of leasing. He also said they would maximize profits to shareholders by either selling leases or holding on to them depending on circunstances

 

[ggies07]

Interesting Sunpower info....funny though, where I live in Texas, even if I wanted to lease from them, I can't because they don't offer it around here.....

 

[futureproof]

disagree. He stated they offer lease or sale. He also said in response to question of why they didn't raise guidance more that they can't book profit right away because of leasing. He also said they would maximize profits to shareholders by either selling leases or holding on to them depending on circunstances

We must be watching two different videos because I didn't hear him say that... Anyway, after all that was said yesterday, do you really think Sunpower sees leasing as a big part of their future strategy in residential DG? Do they offer any serious competition to Solarcity in the residential lease/ppa market?

 

[futureproof]

SCTY price compression is like a spring loaded set up... Personally accumulating here again.

Catalysts:
*gigafactory announcement most likely in May/june
*official CPUC storage ruling in a couple weeks
*any Q1 numbers and Q2/YE guidance
*govt investigation results
*storage deployment updates, roll out announcements
*hit 1GW under management (can project numbers more accurately going into 2018)
*traditional utility partnerships
*bigger than $70 mln ABS offering

My feeling is SCTY stock will be north of $100 by FEB2015...

update: SCTY board and executives (including jervetson associated investors) own over 71% of all common stock (as well as own much of TSLA common shares). The float will be very small for a long time to come, so supply and demand in full effect. Again, volatility will be high, but long term appreciation will be significant... Old highs will be new bottom lows as we are currently seeing right now...

 

[futureproof]

Agreed. Look at the following picture of my community. I was the first one to sign up with Solarcity and referred 11 more systems.
View attachment 47245

@tslas, been seeing an increase in "referral" social media from individuals and a major light bulb went off... If a whole block pools together and splits the referrals(like you did) then we might see a dramatic increase in lease ppas across solarcity's addressable market as this program expands. Seems like they can either use the money to pay off solar bill for many months or use it for other purposes... Seems like a very attractive value prop. for many home owners... Is this how ypu felt with bringing it up to your neighbors?

 

[TheBanker]

With short interest so high and insider ownership at 71% the short squeeze could be brutal. That's one of the main reasons I bought the stock aggressively when I did back at $33. I wish SCTY would drop more news on us piece by piece each week to keep the shorts at bay. It seems anytime the company is quiet the stock goes down a bit. Installations will increase during the summer and that should get the bulls more motivated to add to positions.

 

[HenryF]

SCTY price compression is like a spring loaded set up... Personally accumulating here again.

Catalysts:
*gigafactory announcement most likely in May/june
*official CPUC storage ruling in a couple weeks
*any Q1 numbers and Q2/YE guidance
*govt investigation results
*storage deployment updates, roll out announcements
*hit 1GW under management (can project numbers more accurately going into 2018)
*traditional utility partnerships
*bigger than $70 mln ABS offering

My feeling is SCTY stock will be north of $100 by FEB2015...

I appreciate your optimism. But as a general rule SCTY always falls after ER. Here are the price changes on each of the post ER days (starting from the latest):

-5.71%
-16.70%
-10.80%
-12.37%
-14.43%

The issue here is, faster they grow, the bigger the loss they show. As I said many times in this thread, this is due to messed up accounting. Operational Expenses are all recorded in the same period but bulk of the revenues are recognised over 120 quarters! That's a two orders of magnitude difference!!

Market doesn't fully get this. It sees a big loss and screams SELL!!

To make matters worse, this applies to guidance as well. If they increase the guidance in terms of MWs, they will also further lower the already negative eps.

I'm positioning myself to buy even more if it falls after ER. My time frame is 5+ years. This confusion is a tremendous buying opportunity who can see through all this in my opinion.

Keep in mind after several years of growth Operating Expenses will flatten out, while revenues and gross-profits continually go up as they are accumulative of existing contracts and new contracts. There will be a cut off point where there will be no turning back, the eps will continually grow forever almost with never a dip. Think about it, even when new installs come down to literally zero, the eps will be flat but won't dip! This is the end game for solarcity and that is what I'm in for.

That is the timeframe we should be willing to have if we want to invest in scty imho. Otherwise, the stock is just too wild and one could get washed away easily.

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update: SCTY board and executives (including jervetson associated investors) own over 71% of all common stock (as well as own much of TSLA common shares). The float will be very small for a long time to come, so supply and demand in full effect. Again, volatility will be high, but long term appreciation will be significant... Old highs will be new bottom lows as we are currently seeing right now...

Curious, where did you get the 71% number from?

 

[dalalsid]

I like to look at Solarcity in loss/customer. That number is decreasing. The total loss is only growing because the number of customers are growing very fast. Once they cross over from loss/customer into profit/customer - things will change.

 

[futureproof]

@HenryF, true, however, a lot of investors already know that since their is 71%+ shares out of circulation for a long time horizon... We all are late to realizing this... PV is only half of the solar equation. Storage completes the circuit sort of speak. Networked PV storage is the endgame that will truly revolutionize the energy industry and Solarcity will right there the whole way. Gotta have vision for this, some don't catch on till it's too late and then ego gets in the way of their better judgement. With the hardcore Elon investors, many shares won't see circulation for many years, so the more that jump on the boat, the less shares out there for a while and we all know what happens then. Elon stocks are more then just stocks to a large investment population out there. His companies are apart of a movement and that's hard for trader/broker/analyst type people to grasp...

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With short interest so high and insider ownership at 71% the short squeeze could be brutal. That's one of the main reasons I bought the stock aggressively when I did back at $33. I wish SCTY would drop more news on us piece by piece each week to keep the shorts at bay. It seems anytime the company is quiet the stock goes down a bit. Installations will increase during the summer and that should get the bulls more motivated to add to positions.

Hit it right on the head... Remember what happened to tsla when Elon rolled out his five part trilogy?

 

[futureproof]

Curious, where did you get the 71% number from?

SolarCity - Definitive Proxy Statement
Go to page 42...

 

[HenryF]

@futureproof I see about 30% shares owned by Insiders and Jurvetson's fund owning 16%. That makes it 45% outstanding. Curious, where are you seeing 71%?

 

[futureproof]

@henryf,53mln by execs and board, 15mln by DFJ assoc... 68mln in total. Approx 92mln total shares outstanding... Am I missing something? Just did a quick look so I could be off...

Are you looking at page 42 of the proxy or something else?

update: Rive bros and Elon own over 35% alone... So I'm thinking you didn't get to the proxy numbers yet...

 

[HenryF]

@futureproof Thanks for the proxy link. I was looking at some tool which has outdated info.