Arcadia and Perch Energy have announced a new venture combining both companies’ community solar businesses to create a new standalone company, which claims to 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 financial backing and a board composed of Arcadia and Perch investors.
The new venture will be majority-owned by Arcadia. Bruce Stewart, the president and CEO of Perch, will serve as the CEO of the new company and sit on the Board of Directors. Kiran Bhatraju will continue to serve as CEO of Arcadia and will also sit on the new venture’s board.
Together, the new venture will manage over 3 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity across roughly 1,000 solar projects in 16 states, serving more than 300,000 residential customer equivalents with proprietary software technology and automation. The two companies estimate their services have already saved an estimated $90 million combined for customers.
“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 Stewart. “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 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.
Both companies’ CEOs have appeared on previous episodes of the Factor This! podcast. Kiran Bhatraju, founder and CEO of Arcadia, joined Episode 38 to discuss the role of data in upending the energy industry’s long-held power dynamics. Bruce Stewart, President and CEO of Perch Energy and the CEO of the new joint venture, joined Episode 74 of the podcast to map out new markets on the way, the challenge of acquiring, and keeping, low-income customers, and more.
