Edward Fenster
Analyst · Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open
Thanks, Bob. Today, I plan to address three topics. The benefits in the next decade of June’s IRS guidance to margins, especially to providers of residential solar as a service; changes during the quarter to gross and net earning assets and finally, our near-term capital strategy and pipeline. First on Slide 9, I want to illustrate how the recent guidance issued by the IRS regarding the investment tax credits will make managing the step-downs of the investment tax credit, especially comfortable. And we believe will cause increased market share for solar as a service. This June, the IRS clarified that by incurring at least 5% of project cost in advance, for instance through advance purchase of inventory, a company can delay the step-downs in the investment tax credits. In the most extreme example by making a large advance purchase in December 2019, we can continue to claim a 30% investment tax credit through December 2023, rather than have it phase down to 26% in 2020, 22% in 2021 and 10% in 2022. While we’ve not finalized our strategy regarding this opportunity, the rule has clearly a favorable development for the company and it presents more options to extend the higher tax credit levels. Our strong balance sheet and relationship with capital providers position us well to benefit from this guidance. In addition, the ability to delay the step-downs of the investment tax credit through this guidance exists only for solar systems owned by businesses such as Sunrun. It does not exists for homeowners buying and owning systems themselves. Although businesses and homeowners both enjoy a 30% tax credit today, the business and individual tax credits exists in different sections of the code and are subject to different phase out schedules and rules. As such, we would expect to see an industry-wide mix shift of volumes from customer-owned to at least begin in 2020 when individuals buying directly would face a 26% tax credit and solar service providers like Sunrun could benefit from a 30% tax credit. This advantage would peak in 2022 when individuals would receive no tax credit and solar service providers like Sunrun would benefit from a 22% to 30% tax credit. Neither after this advantage would settle a 10% as solar service providers like Sunrun enjoy a 10% permanent tax credit, but the individual tax credit expires in December 2021. DTM estimates that approximately half of the market today is customer purchase systems. Importantly, this guidance makes managing the step-down of the investment tax credit even easier. Assuming we raise consumer prices by approximately 2% per year in the phase of expected retail rate escalation of about 3.6% in our main markets, we only need to achieve just under a 4% annual cost reduction to maintain 2018 margins in 2024 under a 10% tax credit. To be clear, we think we can do significantly better. Historically, we have achieved 9% annual cost reductions for the last three years and since inception, we have managed through federal and state subsidy reductions three times the size of the full step-down between today and the 10% in ITC. Turning now to Slide 12, in Q3, net earning assets grew slightly while cash increased $27 million to $270 million. Net earning assets is our way to describe the value of the cash flows that Sunrun’s shareholders after payments to tax equity index counterparties. Because there are different accounting treatment for different tax equity structures, I want to point out where you can find the components on the financial statements to calculate these figures. This quarter, we used a structure called the pass-through, which we haven’t used in several years. So I want to explain how to unpack it. Tax reform has made pass-throughs more competitive with partnership flips, so we may use more of them in the future. The pass-through financing obligation used to calculate net earning assets is reduced by $36 million, which is the portion of that liability we expect will be eliminated when the pass-through financing provider receives investment tax credits on assets that has funded. At that time, the $36 million would be recognized as revenue. Due to a short-term nature, this amount is reflected in the current portion of the pass-through financing obligation. In a pass-through financing, we book the value of tax benefits on the revenue line. For partnership flip structures, because GAAP requires it, we book the value of tax benefits at the bottom of the P&L as a loss allocated to non-controlling interest. For pass-throughs, we book the value of tax benefits upon receipt of interconnection permission from the local utility. For partnership flip structures, we book this value earlier, beginning a deployment. As such, in a period, such as this one, where we begin to use a pass-through, income moves above the operating line but lags. This effect resulted in the depressed EPS in the quarter. Each method generates net income to Sunrun’s common shareholders although under GAAP, the timing and geography is different. Turning to our upcoming capital strategy and pipeline. As we shared on the prior call, we expect the remaining annual cash build will occur in Q4 due to project finance timing, but also increased operating leverage. As such, we expect principally to increase net earning assets rather than cash during Q3. We believe we will achieve the best possible execution by sequencing our transactions first in the public senior debt markets, next is applicable in the subordinated debt market and finally to the extent desired in the project equity market. We are still on track to generate at least $50 million of cash this year. Our 2018 outlook does not require refinancing of post-flip assets which opportunity is still on the come for 2019, between operational growth and refinancing opportunities, cash generation could double to $100 million next year. Our debt and tax equity capital commitments already provide runway into next year. And with that, I will turn the call back over to Lynn.