An online marketplace will let U.S. homeowners to
evaluate selections for going solar as easily as they can compare prices for
airline tickets for the first time this December.
Geostellar is a startup backed by power producer NRG Energy Inc. It is in quest of
becoming the Expedia or Orbitz of the solar
industry. The said solar industry is a one-stop shop where consumers can
not compare the benefits of leasing solar panels versus buying them outright alone
but eventually sign up to install a system.
On the site, www.geostellar.com, Solar players together
with NRG, No. 1 U.S. installer SolarCity Corp, Boston-based solar loan provider
Admirals Bank, manufacturer and financier Conergy, East Coast installer Roof
Diagnostics and Connecticut’s Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority
will feature their products.
Geostellar looks forward to its platform will let
installers and financiers to lower the price of getting hold of new customers.
It is a main objective in the ferociously competitive rooftop solar industry.
Solar companies are centered on cutting prices therefore they will be able
deliver on their promise to save customers money on power bills by converting
to solar.
Geostellar will make money by claiming a portion of a
system’s total installed price – between 10 and 20 percent, Chief Executive
David Levine said.
According to Levine, Geostellar, which was founded in
2010, got its start by selling data to solar companies that showed the solar
energy potential of individual rooftops. Its early customers included solar
financing companies SunRun, Sungevity and others.
It increased to $14 million from NRG, Flash Forward
Ventures, satellite imagery company GeoEye (now owned by DigitalGlobe Inc), and
the state of Maryland’s venture capital fund, in May 2012
Levine had tried to convince his customers to use
Washington-based Geostellar’s data to build a website where consumers can
comparison shop for solar. He resolved to use those funds to build it himself.
“We went back to those customers and said instead of us
giving you data and you doing the marketing, we want to be your customer
acquisition engine,” Levine said in an interview.
To build 3D representations of neighborhoods and their
rooftops, Geostellar makes use of satellite data. It is a simulation that moves
the sun across the sky then facilitates the company calculates how much sun a
rooftop gets at any specific time of the year. A key factor of this occurrence
is in determining whether going solar makes financial sense. The website then
layers on the value of government incentives in addition to local utility rates
to provide customers a full view of what it would charge them to sign up for a
solar installation.
Visitors to Geostellar’s website or its mobile app called
Solar Mojo can then compare and contrast the costs and benefits
of a solar lease, a lending plan or a cash purchase, depending on the
market. Lastly, they can sign up for what they want with the click of a button.
