Residential solar company expanding Denver headquarters

A national leader in residential solar and storage services is expanding its Denver-based operations, officially opening its larger downtown office space Monday.

Sunrun Inc. hosted Gov. Jared Polis and others at the grand opening of the 120,000-square-foot office at the Johns Manville Plaza on 17th Avenue.

The San Franciscobased company, founded in 2007, decided in 2015 to open its second corporate headquarters in Denver, said Ed Fenster, Sunrun’s co-founder and executive chairman.

“Obviously, we love California. It’s a wonderful place to live. It’s always been good to us,” Fenster.

The company decided that Colorado was a good place to do business, too, Fenster said.

“It was clear that the state policies and lawmakers share our views. The labor pool in Denver is attractive and people like to live here,” Fenster said.

The company’s Denverbased workforce of more than 700 is larger than its California-based workforce, Fenster added.

Sunrun provides solar residential services. It designs, installs, finances and maintains the solar systems. Customers receive predictable pricing for 20 years or more, according to the company.

Customers can buy the system over time or outright, but about 85% opt to pay for the services, Fenster said.

Sunrun provides home solar, battery storage and other energy services to roughly 260,000 customers in 23 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

“Colorado’s leadership on renewable energy means cleaner air, savings for customers and good green jobs,” Polis said in a statement. “SunRun is yet another example of bringing good green jobs to our state and helping empower homeowners to achieve energy independence and savings through rooftop solar.”

Fenster said he expects Sunrun’s staff in Denver to continue to grow. He said the residential solar industry has grown from 5% to 20% annually during the past several years.

“And residential solar installers is the fastestgrowing job category,” Fenster said.

A recent analysis said that job growth in Colorado’s so-called “advanced energy” industry — including renewable energy, energy efficiency, electrified transportation, biofuels — is expected to expand by about 9% this year. The trade organization Advanced Energy Economy said the number of Colorado-based workers in the industry increased by 4% last year to 65,400, compared with the state’s overall job growth of 2.4%.