Silver Spring clean energy startup Neighborhood Sun is joining forces with a New York company.
The local firm, whose platform makes solar energy available to the community, said Wednesday it’s merging with New York’s Astral Power, which provides clean energy that’s locally produced.
The deal was an all-stock transaction, according Neighborhood Sun.
The combined business, to assume the Neighborhood Sun name, will inherit Astral Power’s leadership team — and Neighborhood Sun CEO Gary Skulnik will remain in the top slot. Astral Power’s investors, as well as co-founder Wilson Chang, will join the board.
Neighborhood Sun recently moved to a new Silver Spring headquarters at 8455 Colesville Road. That site will be home to its 12 employees who were on board pre-merger, and another six people it’s planning to hire within the next month, it said. The company is also adding six people from Astral Power’s team, but they will not be relocating.
The deal expands Neighborhood Sun’s customer base and gives it access to the New York market, one of the largest for community solar in the country. And it means both entities can scale efficiencies as one unit, “positioning it for rapid expansion.” The companies said that together they manage renewable energy projects to power more than 15,000 homes across the U.S.
The merger also means the local startup can speed up the rollout of its software platform to new markets, Skulnik said in a statement. “Solar developers and asset owners will benefit from the combined capabilities of the two organizations, including Neighborhood Sun’s powerful customer acquisition and management software platform and the high-quality sales management of Astral Power.”
Neighborhood Sun declined to share annual revenue, but said in an email the transaction doubles its 2021 forecast and should increase revenue three-fold in 2022.
Community solar projects enable anyone to get cheaper and cleaner energy at home — including people who can’t afford or install solar panels because they rent or their roofs don’t allow it. The U.S. counts roughly 15 states that allow third parties to build power plants for residential customers. The community solar space is gaining traction across the country and locally, with D.C. startup Arcadia among the players leading the charge.
Neighborhood Sun, a 2016 Washington Business Journal Startup of the Week, launched after Maryland passed a law in 2015 allowing utility customers to subscribe to solar power projects and get that amount of power credited to their own meters.
Prior to starting this company, Skulnik co-founded and ran Clean Currents, Maryland’s first socially focused clean energy company that switched thousands of customers to wind power. Neighborhood Sun also received financial and promotional backing from Scott Nash, founder of MOM’s Organic Market.
Neighborhood Sun declined to disclose total funding raised to date, but as of early 2021, PitchBook pegged its lifetime funding at $1.63 million.
