SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) shares rose as much as 5% today after a positive report from Goldman Sachs analysts on Monday. They hosted a meeting with the company’s management and said they would actually use recent weakness in the solar panel maker’s shares to buy them up. Goldman continues to rate SolarCity as a Buy with an $80 per share price target.
Looking ahead for SolarCity
Goldman Sachs analyst Brian Lee and his team said after their meeting, they got some visibility into SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY)’s 2024 targets. They said about 40% of the company’s 500 megawatt target for this year is already covered by backlog. As a result, they think SolarCity is in a good position to deliver on its promise. They also think that near-term seasonality isn’t as bad as they expected it would be, which they say suggests “a less back-half weighted ramp” than was implied last year.
This year the Goldman team believes SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) will issue at least $300 million in solar ABS. They think a good chunk of that could be issued within the next few months. Over the long term, they estimated that the number could more than number and even approach $1 billion.
SolarCity increases scale
The analysts note that between 40% and 45% of all new demand for SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) comes from California now, although that amount was about 70% just a few years ago. They said New York seems to have “sizeable potential” for SolarCity as political support and power prices increase there. The Goldman team sees SolarCity as being “well ahead of peers” in terms of scale as it has a presence in 14 states, with more states expected to be added this year.
They also see another potential win for SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) in the form of net metering. The solar company saw wins in California and Arizona, and now the debate is shifting over to Colorado, with deliberations starting there in February.
