Arcadia and Perch Energy today (March 11) announced a new venture combining both companies' industry-leading community solar businesses to create a new standalone company, which will be the largest pure-play community solar acquisition and management servicing platform in the US. The new company will operate as a dedicated venture focused on scaling community solar adoption with strong financial backing and a board composed of Arcadia and Perch investors.
The new venture will be majority-owned by Arcadia. Bruce Stewart, President and CEO of Perch, will serve as the CEO of the new company and sit on the Board of Directors, while Kiran Bhatraju will continue to serve as CEO of Arcadia and also sit on the new venture's board.
Both businesses were early leaders in community solar and have decades of energy experience, with proven track records delivering strong ROI for their solar developer partners and quality customer service for a diverse range of commercial, residential and low-to-moderate income (LMI) customers.
Together, the new venture will manage over 3 GW of solar capacity across 1,000 solar projects in 16 states, serving over 300,000 residential customer equivalents with proprietary software technology and automation. The venture will continue to deliver utility bill savings for consumers and businesses, as the two companies have already saved an estimated $90M combined for customers.
The joint venture will leverage the best of both companies, from Arcadia's market-leading customer acquisition, billing, and utility data software, to Perch's historical strength serving commercial customers, Production-to-Payment reporting capabilities, and the combined teams' management leadership and policy expertise ensuring a smooth transition for all customers.
The new entity is well-capitalized for organic growth and continued M&A opportunities in the sector.
"We believe this venture reflects the natural evolution and maturation of the community solar business, and are excited to merge two strong teams with such dynamic and complementary services and technology," said Bruce Stewart, CEO of the new venture. "This venture also speaks to the clear need we've heard from solar project developers and asset owner partners who want a financially strong and scalable partner that can reliably serve them for decades. A partner that can support them with their growth plans and meet customer demand, as residents, businesses and governments continue to embrace community solar across the US."
"We're thrilled to join forces with Perch and continue delivering millions of bill savings for residential and commercial customers," said Kiran Bhatraju, founder and CEO of Arcadia. "Bruce and team share our values and belief in community solar as the best energy product in the market, and as an essential tool in the coming years to create resilient distribution grids."
The merger comes as Arcadia continues expanding its operations as an energy solutions platform. Arcadia's B2B software platform serves enterprise customers globally providing utility data integrations, AI-powered analytics, and comprehensive energy management solutions. While the new venture will operate as an independently managed entity, Arcadia's platform business will continue to leverage the scale of this expanded community solar presence in its Energy Procurement Advisory offering.
What is community solar? Over the last decade, Arcadia and Perch have become industry leaders in community solar, an innovative model for shared solar energy and utility bill savings. In states that have enabled community solar programs, homeowners, renters, and businesses can enroll in a local project in minutes and receive credits on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced. Community solar doesn't require new transmission and can be built 4x faster than utility-scale solar. This rapidly growing model expands clean energy for all, including low- to moderate-income customers, while strengthening the electric grid.
About Arcadia
Arcadia is the global utility data and energy solutions platform, and manager of the nation's leading community solar program. With our leading data platform, AI-powered analytics, industry expertise, and expansive partner network, we deliver solutions for every stage of the enterprise energy management lifecycle across carbon, cost, and reliability.
About Perch Energy
Boston-based Perch Energy is an industry-leading community solar servicer that's helped renters, homeowners, and businesses save more than $40 million cumulatively in total energy discounts since its founding. Perch's clean energy technology platform makes it easy for businesses, municipalities, and residential customers to sign up for community solar and save. Perch offers a suite of services to solar farm developers and owners to maximize the ROI of their assets, from customer acquisition, onboarding, lifecycle management, and billing, to regulatory and policy expertise for navigating community solar program rules. To date, Perch has provided services for solar projects which have generated over 2.3 billion kWh of power across Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota.
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