Financing Rooftop Solar is a Thing (SCTY; SPWR; GOOG)

Readers who have been with us for a while know we have watched financier SolarCity since the IPO and before that traded both sides of the solar boom-bust. We still use First Solar as a tell on the market's risk appetite.
Here's the current state of play.
From Venture Capital Dispatch:

Solar Finance Space Heats Up as Kilowatt Financial Gains Ground 

In the shadows of SolarCity, Sunrun and other better-known providers of financing for residential solar installation, a younger entrant, Kilowatt Financial, has been quietly gaining ground, with a lot of venture capital behind it.

Minneapolis-based Kilowatt Financial has raised $125 million in equity funding to date, including $40 million in startup investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers at the end of 2011, VentureWire has learned.  The company is quickly deploying capital into solar and energy-efficiency projects, and relying in large part on the services of another Kleiner Perkins portfolio company, Clean Power Finance.

So far, Kilowatt has deployed $250 million into solar projects that are already operating and which it identified via the Clean Power Finance online marketplace.

The residential solar market has been growing quickly in the past couple of years, in part because of the financing methods introduced by Sunrun and popularized in large part by SolarCity, which is now a publicly traded company. These financing structures allow homeowners to get solar systems at no upfront cost and then to pay monthly for the use of the power generated. Homeowners end up saving on their total electricity use, while financing companies get steady revenue over 20 years.

Kilowatt, founded in late 2011 by management with deep consumer lending background, is expanding quickly in the solar and energy-efficiency market. It has about $400 million in assets under management, according to Kilowatt Chairman and Chief Executive Daniel Pillemer.

That’s quick uptime in this business, and part of the reason for it, Mr. Pillemer said, was that the company worked through Clean Power Finance, which matches solar installers and their homeowner customers to financing companies based on their criteria.

“We leapfrogged that way,” Mr. Pillemer said.

Clean Power Finance has brought other new capital into the residential solar market over the years, including Morgan Stanley, Google and Dominion Power.

Kilowatt, unlike SolarCity and Sunrun, and like Clean Power Finance , focuses on a distinct part of the chain of services that go into the finance installation of solar system. Other companies, by contrast, are bringing more services under a single roof....MORE

And from Zacks:

SunPower, Google Collaborate for Solar Financing

San Jose, CA-based solar manufacturer SunPower Corp. (SPWR) and Google Inc. have teamed up to form a $250 million fund to help homeowners across the U.S. to go solar.

This pact is essentially aimed at financing residential solar system installations that SunPower will then lease out to homeowners. Google has committed to invest $100 million, while SunPower will invest $150 million in the plan.

This will definitely give a boost to SunPower’s residential leasing program, launched in 2011. Through this program SunPower has gained significant traction in the U.S. solar rooftop installation market. This program enables the company to receive tax benefit under the Investment Tax Credit structure, which aims at promoting solar photovoltaic (PV) installations.
In a win-win deal, the leasing program helps customers to reduce their carbon footprint while avoiding bulky upfront payments. SunPower on its part gains significant top-line visibility.

SunPower already had more than 20,000 lease customers running under this program for 20 years. With this new partnership, SunPower expects to add thousands more to this plan.

Residential solar installation is now a sizzling story. This market even outpaced the commercial and utility segments last year and has already started to attract more conventional electric power companies that produce power mostly from coal and natural gas.

Meanwhile, this deal proves yet again Google’s commitment to advancing green power. The financial assistance to SunPower marks the Internet giant’s 16th renewable energy investment and the 3rd in residential rooftop solar. The search giant has invested more than $1 billion in renewable projects throughout the world....MORE

Finally, a word from the first winner of the Climateer "Our Hero" award back in April 2007:

The 26th Secretary of War, the Democrat and Republican (!) Senator from Pennsylvania, Simon Cameron:

Our Hero

"The honest politician is one who 
when he is bought, will stay bought."