Clean Power Finance, headquartered in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, is a financial services and software company for the residential solar industry.
Clean Power Finance operates the CPF Market, an online business-to-business platform that connects institutional investors and lenders with residential solar professionals who need
solar finance products to grow their businesses. The company was founded in 2006 by
Match.com
Match is an online dating service with web sites serving over 50 countries in twelve languages. Its headquarters are in Dallas, Texas. The company has offices in Dallas, West Hollywood, San Francisco, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Beijing. Match is ...
founder and
serial entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
Gary Kremen
Gary Kremen (born 20 September 1963) is an American engineer, entrepreneur and politician who founded the personals site Match.com, was the first registrant of Sex.com and founder of Clean Power Finance, and is a board member of the Santa Clara Va ...
, and for the first five years sold CPF Tools to solar installers and originators.
In early 2011, Nat Kreamer, a co-founder of
Sunrun
Sunrun is an American provider of photovoltaic systems and battery energy storage products, primarily for residential customers. The company was established in 2007 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Since its inception, the c ...
, joined the company as CEO. In April 2011, the company began making residential solar finance products available to qualified channel partners. Finance products allow installers to offer a variety of financing options to consumers who want less expensive solar electricity immediately without the hassle and expense of
photovoltaic solar system ownership. Clean Power Finance operates the largest network of solar professionals in the United States.
Clean Power Finance has raised more than a billion dollars in residential solar project financing, and currently manages more than half a billion dollars on behalf of fund investors, including
Google Inc.
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. I ...
($75MM), Kilowatt Financial ($250MM), an unnamed utility holding company, and
Integrys Energy Group
Integrys Energy Group, Inc. was an American energy company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It was formed by the merger of WPS Resources Corp. and Peoples Energy Corp. on February 21, 2007. The Chairman, President, and chief executive offic ...
subsidiary Integrys Energy Services
In 2011, the
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
awarded Clean Power Finance a $3MM grant as part of its
SunShot Initiative
The SunShot Initiative is a federal government program run by the US Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office. It bills itself as a national effort to support solar energy adoption in order to make solar energy affordable for all Ame ...
to build a database and software tool to streamline solar permitting processes. In 2012, the DOE awarded Clean Power Finance two more grants. The first, for $500,000, supported development of an online marketplace for
Operations and Maintenance
The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure, and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential install ...
(O&M) services on installed residential solar systems. The second, for $1 million, supports online tools for solar companies to connect to sell and install residential solar more efficiently.
The company currently operates in nine states:
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
,
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
,
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
.
Clean Power Finance is an active solar industry leader. CEO Nat Kreamer was named a White House Champion of Change in the Veterans in Clean Energy and Climate Security category and was elected in May 2014 to serve as chairman of the board of directors at the
Solar Energy Industries Association
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), established in 1974, is the national non-profit trade association of the solar-energy industry in the United States. In 2019, the group reported at least 1,000 member companies.
SEIA is a 501(c ...
(SEIA). Micah Myers, SVP of Corporate Development, is on the board of directors at the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA). The company has played a leading role in helping traditional power companies invest in the residential DG solar market.
In 2016, Clean Power Finance merged with Kilowatt Financial to form
Spruce Finance Inc.
DOE projects
Clean Power Finance is working on four DOE-supported projects: the National Solar Permitting Database, an
O&M marketplace for solar installations, a website to connect solar specialists, and a
Big Data
Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...
project with the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to reduce customer acquisition costs.
#The National Solar Permitting Database (NSPD) is a free, online database of information related to solar permitting requirements in cities and counties around the U.S. The project's goal is to minimize the time and resources required to complete a solar permit, which can add significant costs and delays for solar installers. In June 2013, Clean Power Finance debuted SolarPermit.org, which hosts the NSPD.
#The second project involves
O&M for solar installations. Ongoing system operations and maintenance is a concern that has kept potential solar project financiers out of the market. The O&M Marketplace, currently in beta mode, would help system owners, particularly third-party financiers, identify and contract with O&M service providers.
#The third project is an online tool to allow companies with expertise in selling and marketing solar to efficiently connect and work with companies that specialize in solar installation.
#The fourth project is in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Clean Power Finance is the only solar company involved in the project. It joins seven academic institutions to support NREL in developing a computational model that will analyze data from a network of U.S. solar installers and help identify new types of community- and regional-scale strategies that drive down solar financing and deployment costs.
In 2012, Clean Power Finance completed a study of 273 solar installers in the top 12 states encompassing over 90% of residential solar market. This is the largest known study of residential solar installers to date. The goal was to assess current challenges with solar permitting and identify specific opportunities for improvement among the various authorities having jurisdictions (AHJs) that hold approval power in the completion of solar projects. Key findings include:
**More than 1 in 3 installers avoid selling solar in an average of 3.5 jurisdictions because of associated permitting difficulties.
**Re-submissions of plans occur in 24% of all installations and rework in 16% of all installations, respectively.
**An average installation requires nearly 8 weeks to be processed by all relevant jurisdictions; staff times for installers, however, average just 14.25 hours.
**13% of installations see requirements change during the installation process.
**11% of installations encounter a situation where requirements for solar permitting have not even been set.
**Difficulties with solar permitting are costly to both AHJs and the solar businesses.
Equity Investors
Clean Power Finance is a privately held company. Its
venture capital investors include four
traditional electric power companies -
Duke Energy
Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Overview
Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy owns 58,200 megawatts of base-load and peak generation in ...
,
Edison International
Edison International is a public utility holding company based in Rosemead, California. Its subsidiaries include Southern California Edison, and unregulated non-utility business assets Edison Energy. Edison's roots trace back to Holt & Knupp ...
and two that chose to remain unnamed -
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...
,
Google Ventures
GV is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides Seed investment, seed, Venture capital financing, venture, and Growth investing, growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Venture ...
, Hennessey Capital Management, Claremont Creek Ventures, Clean Pacific Ventures, and Sand Hill Angels. Clean Power Finance’s Board of Directors is chaired by Rajiv Ghatalia and includes Ed Feo,
Joe Kraus
Joe Kraus is the founder of Excite, JotSpot, and DigitalConsumer.org, along with his long-time business partner Graham Spencer. Currently, Kraus is an Investment Partner on the GV team and President at Lime.
Career
A long time entrepreneur, K ...
, Nat Kreamer, and Ben Kortlang.
[Clean Power Finance (16 April 2013)]
"Rajiv Ghatalia Named Chairman of the Board at Clean Power Finance"
'' www.cleanpowerfinance.com''.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Official WebsiteNational Solar Permitting Database
Companies based in San Francisco
Solar power in the United States
GV companies