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Sunnova Raises Nearly $1 Billion In Past Three Months

Funding To Help Growth in Texas

Sunnova Wants To Be Customers' "Primary Power Provider"

June 13, 2017

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Copyright 2010-17 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

Sunnova Energy Corporation announced today it has raised aggregate capital of nearly $1 billion in the past three months after closing a $140 million round of debt funding with CIT Group and other investors this past week.

Sunnova said that the funding will support Sunnova's growth. Sunnova's recent initiatives have included:

• Launching PowerStack, Sunnova's new solar-plus-storage residential service

• Expanding its solar ownership finance product to additional states

• Offering more solar options in additional markets such as Texas

Texas has recently been a growth market for Sunnova, and, "we want to grow Texas faster," Sunnova CEO John Berger told EnergyChoiceMatters.com

"We want to be the primary power provider to our customers," whether that power comes off a solar system, batteries, gensets, or the grid, Berger said

Sunnova is continuing to evaluate strategies for offering something on the grid power side to its customers

Asked specifically about whether the company would roll out its PowerStack solar-plus-storage residential service in Texas in the near future, Berger said that the company doesn’t think that such storage will be commercially viable in Texas on a large scale in the immediate term. "There will be early adopters, of course, but it won’t be something common within the next couple years, unless there is a big change in rate structures," Berger said

Sunnova does plan to launch its PowerStack solar-plus-storage service in California this year.

Berger highlighted the successful funding as showing the strength of Sunnova's business approach in the industry, and its continued attractiveness to investors

"There's also been a lot of what I would say, high profile bankruptcies and other issues in the sector, and the oil and gas sector has not performed very well over the last few weeks, and so I think that it's important that investors see that there are good, positive things happening, and that the fundamentals of this [solar] business may be different than other parts of the energy business, like in the oil business, and are fundamentally very strong," Berger told EnergyChoiceMatters.com

Whether the structure for customer installations are leases, or PPAs or loans, "the investor appetite and the lender appetite, it is tremendous and keeps growing," Berger said

"So this sector, I think, is turning the corner, and we're going to see a lot more positive things on the headline front in the not too distant future for those of us who execute it very well through the downturn," Berger said

Prior to securing this latest $140 million debt funding from CIT and others, Sunnova secured an $80 million tax equity deal on March 14, a $255 million private securitization offering and a $360 million warehouse credit facility deal on April 24 and an $80 million private notes offering on April 25. To date, Sunnova has raised more than $2 billion since 2012.

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