Has anyone targeted solar O&M? Any learnings you'd be willing to share?

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November 19, 2020

by a searcher from The University of Chicago - Booth School of Business in Carmel, IN, USA

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Reply by a searcher
from Westminster College of Salt Lake City in Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Back in 2013 I did due diligence in this space. When I DD in a new industry I typically go down into it & find a product I can try to sell because at the end of the day the only thing that matters is revenue. I found a startup & helped them market & sell to residential & light commercial customers. At those specs, smaller with less scale & a higher cost of capital, what I concluded after about 6-months of solid grinding was that the PV panels weren't efficient enough to cover the cost of capital. If someone could pay cash then there was a case for it but if the customer had to finance the equipment & installation costs they were slightly under water. The competition is also fierce, super-capitalized & already has economies of scale. Now, since then I'm sure the panels have gotten more efficient but it would be interesting to compare the efficiency of the panels back then t what they are today. If they aren't quite a bit more efficient, I'd say it's still going to be a grind. I think if you want to get in this space you need to truly find a way to differentiate & make damn sure it can't be replicated because the likes of SolarCity, Vivint & Sun Solar, they don't take prisoners. If you have more questions of want to talk through it I'd be happy to jump on a call for a minute.
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Reply by a searcher
in Seattle, WA, USA
(This is somewhat tangential to the question, just responding since I was tagged. :)

We have been exploring solar manufacturing in 3rd world countries as that allows a much larger profit margin while remaining price-competitive vs imported product, along with all the ancillary benefits of job creation, reducing economic drain etc. O&M is a big piece of that opportunity and is part of our "package".

That said, it is a steep hill to climb. We have the numbers and the process but there are many other factors involved such that we have not yet actually executed anywhere, though we do make incremental progress on many fronts and hope to have something going in the next year or so.
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