Profits dip for Akeena Solar

Akeena Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: AKNS) predicts homeowners and businesses will not install nearly as many solar systems in 2008 as the company originally predicted. The company's CEO Barry Cinnamon cites higher operating costs and a weakening economy as the main causes.
 
One of the United States' largest designers and installers of residential and commercial solar power systems, Akeena's production and operating costs outpaced its sales in the first quarter. Despite posting net sales of $12.2 million in the first quarter—an increase of 94.7 percent compared to $6.3 million in the first quarter of 2007—Akeena posted a net loss of $4.6 million in the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $933,000 a year earlier.

"Since the beginning of the second quarter, we have seen signs that a looming recession and tightening credit are weighing on consumers' decisions to invest in residential solar installations—even with the price of energy skyrocketing," Cinnamon said in a May 9 press release.

Cinnamon predicts demand for Akeen's systems in 2008 will fall well below original expectations, pointing to the uncertainty surrounding the extension of the federal investment tax credit (ITC) beyond 2008 as a contributing factor.

Based in Los Gatos, Calif., and founded in 2001, Akeena operates six California offices as well as an office in New Jersey [see "Akeena expands to Orange County," SI, January 2007]. The company was just added to the Nasdaq Clean Edge U.S. Index (Nasdaq: CLEN) and the Nasdaq Clean Edge U.S. Liquid Series Index (Nasdaq: CELS) in March. The Indexes are designed to track the performance of clean-energy companies that are publicly traded in the U.S.

Akeena recently entered a partnership with San Francisco-based Sun Run to help bring down the cost of solar systems to homeowners. With the Sun Run Solar Service, homeowners pay a fixed rate for solar electricity over the term of their lease. Foster City-based SolarCity also launched a solar leasing program this spring [See "SolarCity fronts homeowners," SI, May 2008].