SolarCity Expands Services Into Austin, Texas

Amidst lackluster financial results and layoffs, America’s leading solar power provider SolarCity has made its services available to the nearly 900,000 residents of Austin, Texas.

SolarCity is the leading provider of solar in the United States, with GTM earlier this year attributing 14% of non-residential and 35% of residential installations in 2015 to the California-based company. However, 2016 has not been a good year for SolarCity, which posted a $250 million net loss in its second quarter, which has led to co-founding brothers Lyndon and Peter Rive moving to take a yearly salary of $1 at the same time as they lay off at least 108 employees.

The mounting misfortunes haven’t stopped the company from seeking for new opportunities, however, as exemplified by its announcement this week confirming that SolarCity has launched its service in Austin, Texas. Now, customers in Austin will be able to choose from solar services starting at as low as $50 per month, including design, installation, financing, and monitoring.

The move follows SolarCity’s expansion into Utah in July, making its solar services available to the nearly 3 million residents of the state. The expansions are part of SolarCity’s solar loan program, which it launched earlier this year, allowing customers the opportunity to immediately pay less for a solar installation and the resulting electricity than they were for their existing electricity bills. SolarCity has teamed up with Austin Energy, but also provides its services to customers who are not with Austin Energy through a partnership with local retail electricity provider MP2.

As with every expansion SolarCity makes, it is currently looking for locations for a new operations center, as well as employee positions in sales, installation, and related fields.