Katie Fehrenbacher writing at
earth2tech GigaOm Cleantech:
SolarCity publicly disclosed its documents for its planned IPO
on Friday, giving us a look at some of its risk factors. Those include
that the company is being investigated by the Inspector General about
the Treasury Grant program.
Solar installer SolarCity is moving closer to its planned IPO and said last week
that it could raise up to $201 million in a public debut. If
successful, the IPO could be one of the few success stories from the
cleantech startup sector in 2012, and would be another win for investor
and SolarCity chairman Elon Musk.
But the public filing
is also one of the first times that we’ve gotten a look at SolarCity’s
financials, as well as some of the risk factors that SolarCity lists.
And there’s some interesting ones in here. Here’s 5 (+1) things you
should know about SolarCity (and they’re not all positive).
1). Energy efficiency play: While SolarCity’s main
business is financing and installing solar panels on the rooftops of
buildings, SolarCity also is hoping to capitalize in a major way on
selling building owners energy efficiency services. SolarCity says 21
percent of its new residential solar customers in 2011 purchased
additional energy products and services. SolarCity launched its energy
efficiency line in mid 2010, and says it has done more than 11,000 home
energy evaluations and sold 1,700 energy efficiency upgrades....MORE
