SAN FRANCISCO, June 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sunrun Inc. (Nasdaq:RUN), the largest dedicated residential solar company in the United States, today announced it has been named a SunShot Prize Change Champion by the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative for slashing the time it takes to get solar on a home. BrightPath, Sunrun’s innovative software platform, powered the substantial time reduction by streamlining Sunrun’s installation process.
The SunShot Prize: Race to 7-Day Solar launched in September 2015 with the goal of motivating local governments, communities, solar companies and electric utilities to reduce the time it takes to go solar to one week. In some regions across the United States, it takes up to six months to connect to the grid. Sunrun was selected as a Change Champion from among five organizations participating in the race for permitting, installing and flipping the switch on more than 3 MW of rooftop solar in approximately one month. As a Change Champion, Sunrun will be awarded $100,000 and will continue innovating time reductions until March 2017 when the SunShot Initiative will award two grand prizes totaling $4 million.
“Sunrun’s proprietary technology, BrightPath, is designed to make the process of getting solar simple, quick and affordable for homeowners,” said Gary Wayne, vice president of strategic projects at Sunrun. “We’re honored to announce that with BrightPath we’ve successfully exceeded DOE’s installation challenge and earned the distinction of Change Champion.”
BrightPath was developed in part with support from a SunShot Initiative Incubator 8 award. The software provides workflow automation, automatic design generation, shade analysis, energy simulation, pricing and contract generation, real-time change order management, and automatic permit-set generation. It significantly reduces wait times and lowers soft costs of installing residential rooftop solar, which can account for more than half the price of the solar system.
Sunrun invented solar-as-a-service to help homeowners go solar without the high upfront cost and hassle. Today Sunrun is focused on innovating new solutions like BrightPath and Sunrun BrightBox™, a solar power plus energy storage product, to continue to drive down the cost of electricity and offer customers more choice and control.
About Sunrun
Sunrun (Nasdaq:RUN) is the largest dedicated residential solar company in the United States with a mission to create a planet run by the sun. Since establishing the solar as a service model in 2007, Sunrun continues to lead the industry in providing clean energy to homeowners with little to no upfront cost and at a savings to traditional electricity. The company designs, installs, finances, insures, monitors and maintains the solar panels on a homeowner's roof, while families receive predictable pricing for 20 years or more. For more information please visit: www.sunrun.com.
About the SunShot Initiative
The U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort that aggressively drives innovation to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources before the end of the decade. Through SunShot, the Energy Department supports efforts by private companies, universities, and national laboratories to drive down the cost of solar electricity to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour. Learn more at energy.gov/sunshot.
Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding the industry’s growth, Sunrun’s growth, customer savings and demand for our products and services. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which such performance or results will be achieved, if at all. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward looking statements. You should read the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Sunrun's quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and identifies certain of these and additional risks and uncertainties. We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.
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