Engine For Green Jobs: Premier Power CEO Dean Marks (Part 7)

SM: What is the impact of President Obama’s stimulus package going to be on a company like yours?

DM: First it is about the green-collar jobs. We feel we can ramp up very quickly. A lot of other companies have laid people off, but we have held our own while we built up our pipeline. We had such a big Q4, but a lot of it was residential. That is one of the reasons we like residential. They are coming consistently and we are able to move our people around to support them. We picked up a job for a house that is under snow so we have to wait until that melts. We picked up another commercial job in Northern California.

In Spain we had two major jobs this week. There was almost a $3 million job on Monday and a $7 million job today in Spain. We think Spain is going to be 40% of our business this year.

SM: Plus you are picking up a company in Italy.

DM: That should happen by the end of the second quarter.

SM: You are looking at doubling this year? To what extent do you need acquisitions to reach that goal, or will it happen organically?

DM: We are planning on a significant acquisition to accomplish it. We are counting on the one in Italy and then perhaps this one here.

SM: It is essentially a roll-up strategy?

DM: It is. I think that is going to be it. We can cover more geography in California and more in Europe. We think the opportunity in Europe will continue to grow. Greece is coming on strong and we just came back from a trade show in France. We moved into Spain three years ago when folks in Germany were coming down to Spain to do solar farms. In September of last year the feed-in tariff was significantly reduced, so all those people left. It hurt the industry a little. We have always been doing rooftops in Spain and that is what this feed-in tariff was designed for there. We are continuing to go strong and are increasing the rooftop work there.

With the company we are going to acquire in Italy, we see opportunity in the first two years to do ground mount solar farms. We feel the same thing is going to happen there, in which they are going to pull back and focus on rooftops. We will be able to stay in Italy and do rooftops just as we did in Spain.

SM: Even here in the US if there are 175 companies, and with the major stimulus package coming out, it looks as though you will have plenty of roll-up opportunities here as well.

DM: That is certainly true. The particular part of the roll-up plan that is important to us are the federal buildings. There is $6-$7 billion allocated to improve these buildings’ efficiency, and this can include solar. There are power purchase agreements wherein the federal government would not have to pay for it. It would be a third-party investor who buys the system, takes the tax credits and depreciation, and the utility rebate, owns the system and puts it on the roof or the parking lot, which is what we are good at doing, and then whatever that system produces in terms of kilowatt hours, the federal building will pay for those kilowatt hours at a fixed rate for 20 years.

Everybody wins that way. Investors take advantage of the tax credits. The government pays equal or less than what it is paying now in terms of energy costs for the next 20 years. We see a lot of opportunity there. We have done projects like the Richmond Water District and some state and city libraries. We are going after the government and municipality opportunities.

SM: I think you have a great strategy, and I really like the way you have built your company. Best of luck going forward.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Engine For Green Jobs: Premier Power CEO Dean Marks
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