Good morning, and welcome to the Sunnova acquisition of SunStreet conference call. Today's call is being recorded, and we will have allocated one hour for prepared remarks and question and answer. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Rodney McMahan, Vice President, Investor Relations at Sunnova. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. This morning it was announced Sunnova has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SunStreet from Lennar Corporation. The details of this transaction can be found in a press release issued just before 7:00 A.M. Eastern Time earlier today. Joining me this morning are John Berger, Sunnova's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Stuart Miller, Lennar's Executive Chairman. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements. These include remarks about future expectations, beliefs, estimates, plans, and prospects. Such statements are subject to a variety of risk, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by such statements. Such risk and other factors are set forth in our press releases and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any duty to update such forward-looking statements.
I will now turn the call over to John.
Thank you, Rodney. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm excited to share with you that Sunnova has reached an agreement to acquire SunStreet, Lennar's residential solar platform, in an all-stock transaction that will position Sunnova as a market leader in the home builder space. In addition to this acquisition, we will also be entering into a strategic partnership with Lennar, whereby Sunnova will become Lennar's exclusive residential solar and storage service provider for years to come. Together, we'll be aligning the strategic interests of both companies, enhancing Sunnova and SunStreet's growth while enhancing the lives of homeowners.
Under the terms of the agreement, Lennar will receive total consideration of up to 7.2 million shares of Sunnova common stock, which is comprised of 3.3 million shares in initial consideration payable at closing and up to an additional 3.9 million shares associated with two earn-outs. The earn-outs are comprised of up to 2.8 million shares of Sunnova common stock associated with certain annual customer growth commitments over four years, while the second earn-out is comprised of up to 1.1 million shares of Sunnova common stock associated with the development of microgrid communities over the next five years. SunStreet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lennar, was created in 2013 to specifically address home builder needs in the solar industry around unique solar installation processes and providing best-in-class service to new homes and communities.
SunStreet has since earned a reputation as a leader in the residential solar market for home builders. While SunStreet has been anchored by Lennar, it has also expanded its reach by building relationships with additional home builders in multiple markets to bring clean, affordable energy to tens of thousands of new homeowners. This opportunity is coming at a pivotal time in the energy transition. Consumers are demanding more from their energy service providers, especially as people spend more time in their homes and power outages triggered by weather events continue to worsen due to climate change. This consumer awakening is demanding new energy services that are decentralized and decarbonized. We are looking forward to truly providing the energy independence homeowners deserve. Under Sunnova's ownership, we will bring SunStreet's proven track record of high quality, timely installations to even more home builders across the country.
We anticipate a smooth integration aided by SunStreet utilizing a similar differentiated low-cost dealer model as Sunnova. We also look forward to servicing existing SunStreet customers to deliver a better energy service through the addition of storage and other core Sunnova offerings. This transaction will propel Sunnova's customer growth while simultaneously scaling our business and positioning us as the market leader in the home builder industry. Additionally, Lennar has given us a lower cost of capital and provided capital certainty through their commitment to provide significant tax equity investments over the next four years to support our new customer pipeline. At the end of the day, we will now have the ability to upsell over 250,000 existing homes built by Lennar in the last decade and over 40,000 solar-only SunStreet installations with Sunnova's broad portfolio of distributed energy offerings.
By teaming up with Lennar, one of the largest home builders in the country, we will be able to provide more new homeowners with access to innovative energy services. To deliver on this initiative, the partnership will focus on the development and rollout of new technologies, with Lennar participating in Sunnova's entry into the microgrid space through Lennar's technology-based subsidiary, LEN X. Together, we look forward to creating innovative pathways for how new communities are powered for years to come. As we enter the transition period of the agreement, Sunnova and SunStreet will continue operations as separate entities until the acquisition is finalized. Going forward, for existing customers of SunStreet, Sunnova will reference the brand as SunStreet, a Sunnova company. We're excited about this next step in our evolution. We will continue to provide unparalleled service to our customers while fulfilling our promise of generating value for our shareholders.
For all of us at Sunnova, this agreement speaks to the heart of our core values, service, synergy, and sustainability. We believe in achieving more by working together, collectively advancing the energy industry through collaboration, integrity, respect, and long-term trusted relationships. As our business impact grows, so too will our positive social and environmental impact, helping Sunnova achieve its overarching mission of powering energy independence. I would like to thank our dedicated team at Sunnova for working hard to make this opportunity a reality, and Stuart and his team at Lennar for seeing that Sunnova was the right place for SunStreet to call home. Most importantly, a big welcome to the SunStreet team. We're excited to have you join our family and look forward to the great work that we will do together, collectively accelerating the adoption of residential solar and storage service on new homes across the U.S.
I would now like to turn the call over to Stuart Miller, Lennar's Executive Chairman. Stuart?
Thank you, John, and good morning, everybody? Let me start by saying that today we at Lennar are very excited to become long-term investors in the Sunnova Energy International platform. It has become a core competence at Lennar to invest in best-in-class technology companies that are reshaping our industry, to work alongside management to help mold the future, and to use our formidable volume to roll out and expand an excellent working model. Today's sale is very purposefully a sale for stock in Sunnova, as we fully expect to remain invested while we work with the Sunnova management team, together with our LEN X team, to innovate for the future and bring ever-better products and ideas to the new home market. At Lennar, we have long embraced Sunnova's goal of being the source of clean, affordable, and reliable energy.
Sunnova's mission to power energy independence so that homeowners have the freedom to live life uninterrupted has never been more relevant than today. With power outages in many parts of Texas, recent fires in California, and regular hurricanes in Florida and elsewhere, the new home can meet the challenge of getting better, and it will. At Lennar, we want to be involved in innovation. We want to be invested in innovation, and we want to be engaged with the best management teams to drive success. Accordingly, we are investing in Sunnova as we expect to work together to expand beyond just rooftop solar to storage and to microgrid technologies in the future in order to build life uninterrupted for our customers and clean energy for our planet.
As John noted in his remarks, Lennar built the SunStreet operating platform to drive Lennar's sustainability focus at a time when there was very limited focus on alternative energy sources in the home building space. SunStreet was built inside Lennar in order to facilitate Lennar's drive and determination to make rooftop solar a standard feature, an Everything's Included feature on every Lennar home starting in California. We experimented and innovated and developed a standard offering and a best-in-class operating team that would dovetail installation with even flow production. The cost of the installation was included in the price of our homes, the standard sustainable new home product was born. Today, SunStreet is a mature, best-in-class, efficient, and effective installer and owner of rooftop solar for the production new home market.
The SunStreet operating team understands the unique needs of the home building business and is positioned to expand our initial sustainability mandate to a broad range of customers. With California's 2020 mandate for rooftop solar on every new home and other solar initiatives in many other states across the country, the opportunity for growth is sizable and growing rapidly. Today's announcement is a pivotal moment for Lennar, for the SunStreet team, and for Sunnova. We built SunStreet to be a leader and an innovator, and now, combined with Sunnova, there is simply no better company in the space to carry excellence forward and to build a bigger and better platform with innovative energy solutions for the new home market. With that, let me turn it back over to John.
Thank you, Stuart. I sit here in Houston, Texas, today with the ongoing energy crisis affecting millions of people across the state, including most of our employees, if not all of them. The importance of distributed energy service offerings could not be more critical. We feel strongly that the current discussion shouldn't be solely centered around renewables versus fossil fuels. It should be about the power of decentralized generation and services and how we can bring homeowners the most affordable and reliable energy they need. As Stuart noted, whether it's wildfires in California, hurricanes in Florida, or snowstorms in Texas, now more than ever, it is clear the way we power our homes must change. Before turning to Q&A, I would like to remind everyone that we'll be hosting our Q4 and full year 2020 earnings call next Thursday, February 25 at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time.
During that call, we will further discuss the impact of our SunStreet acquisition and partnership with Lennar, including an update on how this agreement will positively impact Sunnova and be accretive for growth in 2021 and beyond. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.
Hey, guys. Good morning? Congrats on a nice deal here.
Thank you.
Maybe a first question for you, John. How much volume does this platform do each year, either in terms of new homes or new megawatts? I know you talked about the install base, just what's the run rate here annually? How does this impact your outlook for new customer additions in 2021? I would assume it's pretty incremental.
Thanks, Brian. We can't get into details now that would get into changing guidance and such. We're going to remain silent on that for now, but we'll cover that in detail next week on the earnings call. It's not that many days away, obviously. I would say this, that it's a pretty decent add and it's going to start this year, so it's fairly significant. Obviously it's very accretive, as I said. We'll go through not only customer growth, but what does it do to our other key important metrics, adjusted EBITDA plus principal and interest, recurring operational cash flow, and such. This is a very positive deal for shareholders in a rather quick fashion.
Okay. Yeah, I look forward to more details. Maybe just on that point, even if at a high level, you mentioned the tax equity that Lennar would be providing, and also I would assume this is going to reduce your install cost/cost of acquisition. Can you speak to both of those, sort of the tax equity capital, how much incremental you might see from the relationship here, and then also by going through this platform, what sort of the positive impact is on cost?
Again, I'll stay at a high level, and then we'll be able to get into more details next week. The cost structure is better. It's lower because we don't have the acquisition side of the cost, we see this as very much incrementally positive on the unlevered returns. The tax equity is significant. I don't think that we can get into a direct or a specific number at this point in time, but I think it'd be fair to say that the incremental or additional is a better way of saying it, the significant additional amount of growth is going to be funded by this tax equity. This tax equity is for several years to come. As you know, that's pretty unique, Brian, right? To have multiple year tax equity. We've worked out something very, very attractive here.
We're not only getting a great platform and customer base to upsell 40,000 customers. We're getting 250,000 customers that didn't choose solar in the last 10 years to be able to go and upsell there with Lennar. On top of that, we're getting a great partnership with Lennar on new technologies, microgrids. Think new communities and how those could be powered. What about a wireless power company coming in and managing all those communities? I can tell you right now, sitting in Houston, where we have basically no power, that's pretty darn attractive. All of that comes with fully financed as far as the complicated piece of the capital structure with tax equity. I mean, it's a heck of a deal.
Okay, great. Maybe last one from me, and I'll pass it on. You spoke about technologies, and I think Lennar mentioned in the release also that it's a technology platform. Can you speak to what technologies does the SunStreet platform provide to you guys? Are you having to make any incremental investment there? Just on the release, you also mentioned the ability to work with other home builders. Can you elaborate on that a bit? Who else uses SunStreet, and then what's the opportunity going forward there? Thanks, guys.
Certainly. On the technology side of things, the process for home building is very different than retrofit market, which obviously is our only current process and market that we have. The devil's in the details, as they say. What Stuart and the SunStreet team did with the rest of the folks at Lennar is over years, perfected that process. That's something that we're going to be able to take on and implement across our platform very quickly. Again, the good news, and I referenced this, is that the IT platforms are exactly the same. We use Salesforce. They did too. We use Vena, so do they. There's a lot of similarity. A lot of the integration cost is going to be relatively straightforward and lower.
What I will say is that there are some opportunities to invest further into IT systems to enhance capabilities, particularly as a rollout of new technologies. Think load management, think gensets, fuel cells, and some other technologies that we have discussed with Lennar already. EV charging. There's a number of things that we're going to be able to add, and we're going to invest in the IT platforms now as we put these companies together. That's going to make those services and offerings to new home buyers extremely interesting and powerful. In terms of Stuart, I don't know if you want to comment a bit more on the LEN X platform and technologies. You've been a leader in home building on new technologies. Would you like to say a few words on that and what you see on vision of the future?
Look, Lennar has been highly focused on investing in technologies and investing in the evolution of the home building industry. We have focused on finding best of breed in areas of innovation in and around the new home experience and the customer interface. That's exactly how we're looking at today's combination. We've built a platform, but it's time that we work with specialists in new home energy delivery systems, and that's exactly what Sunnova has focused on and will focus on in the future. The opportunity set is to go from just providing rooftop solar to providing an integrated system to larger scale communities, tying together a combination of rooftop solar with storage and other technology to interface better with the grid and ultimately be a net provider of energy.
This is a very exciting proposition for us. We look forward to working together with people who specialize in this space, and look forward to being invested in the future of home innovation.
Thanks, Stuart. Thanks, Brian.
Thanks, guys.
The next question is from the line of Alan Ratner with Zelman & Associates.
Hey, guys. Good morning? Congrats on the deal. Sounds exciting. Stuart, I'd love just to hear from you. Obviously, SunStreet's been around now for about eight years, and I think you kind of touched on it a little bit in your prior answer, but I'm curious why now is the right time to pursue this type of partnership as opposed to continue to expanding the business within the confines of Lennar and LEN X. I'm just curious, was this driven more by the Lennar kind of return to core strategy, or was there something specific related to this solar business that you felt now is the right time to pursue a partnership and take it to the next level?
It's a great question, Alan. Through the years, we've experimented in a number of ways with our technology initiatives. SunStreet was one of those earlier experiments. We built the platform ourselves and internally. As we've noted on other earnings calls, we are focused on returning to a core pure play kind of approach to the manufacturing business around home building. Rather than trying to be the innovator, we have learned over the past years that the better model is to find the innovators who are best positioned to execute and be invested and work alongside with those innovators to enable them to be the best version of themselves while we work on being the best version of ourselves as a pure play home builder. This is part of an overall strategy.
It's an overall strategy to be invested, to work alongside, and to be a part of the innovation process, but not to actually try to become the innovation process, because there are specialists that will do it better than us. Why right now? We have spent the past couple of years looking at the right partnership that would define the right way forward for our company. We've talked to everybody who operates in this space, and we just concluded that there's no better partner than Sunnova. We have compatibility with the management team. We share core values, and we really look forward to seeing the kinds of innovations that we can bring to the market together. That's where we came from on this.
Great. No, that's very helpful. John, maybe I'll throw one your way, and admittedly, I'm less familiar with your business there, but I'm just curious. It sounds like new construction has not been a focal point of your business up to this point. Curious why you felt this was the right way to enter that space as opposed to starting something more greenfield or perhaps partnering with another company if there is one that focuses on new construction as well.
Yeah, certainly. Thanks for the question. I grew up in the construction business. Actually spent a lot of time building homes and commercial buildings as I was growing up. I can tell you that the community of home builders is very tight. It's a community that takes years to be able to get to know, to have them trust you, and then to understand, again, as I said earlier, the devil's in the details. Just from my personal background, I recognize we don't know what we don't know about this space. Lennar obviously does hands down. This gave us the ability to come in, have a huge existing base of customers, a really solid, high-quality partner that, as Stuart just said, shares our values. We work very well together as management teams.
There's a lot of common ground, if you will, and common thought process. We both view this, and this goes a bit to answering some of Brian's question earlier, too, as a platform. Yes, there's other home builders on this platform. We have some home builders in our greenfield startup that we've been working internally on for the last year or so. There's a lot more we can do. We needed help. We needed a platform. We needed to be able to do it because we have so much going on in the growth with our retrofit business, new technologies, sourcing them, partnering with the technology firms, launching those technologies out, making sure customers get the service, especially in times like these, that they deserve. All that, there's a lot going on. We needed to have a great partnership and platform.
This gives us that. We're acquiring this business and other home builders should know we're obviously not in the home building business, and we think that that will really accelerate the growth here. As Stuart also mentioned we see the same vision and have the same vision for the long term. What does the new communities in America look like? They look a lot different, in our opinion, as far as energy and what services that those new home buyers deserve, which is to have clean, affordable energy that's more reliable. As I sit here in Houston, Texas, just the backdrop of what's going on here as far as this acquisition, it could not be more stark and give a message of there is a better way to do things, and it's time.
We got to move forward, and I could pick no better help and partnership and platform than SunStreet and Lennar and Stuart.
It sounds like a very smart strategic partnership for both of you guys. I wish you and your employees best of luck dealing with the terrible situation down there right now. Good luck with everything, guys.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Philip Shen with ROTH Capital Partners.
Hi, everyone? Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the acquisition. Just a few follow-ups here. Stuart, you were talking about the rationale of the acquisition. I was wondering if you guys could both address how the transaction came around. Stuart, it sounds like you guys were looking into this for some time. Maybe a bit more color on how many others were at the table. It sounds like you were talking to everybody. Ultimately, you highlighted that the win and the decision with Nova came about with how you see eye to eye with the management team. I'm just curious if you could provide a little more detail there. Thanks.
Sure. Look, it's not uncommon for us at Lennar to know almost all of the participants in a space in which we operate. That was very much the case with the solar business. We've been operating, as John noted, since 2013. We got to know a number of the solar participants in the course of just growing our business. Just in getting to know people, you get to know where the intersection is most meaningful. If you know John and you know his management team they are focused on building best-in-class business. They have a conservative style about the way that they manage their business in terms of their financial accounting and their financial focus. All of the components of the way they operate their business just dovetail with the culture and the history of Lennar.
There's a compatibility among the people that enables us to work side by side and work together. We were very particular about who we would partner with or invest with in this space. We spent a lot of time building a best-in-class program and best-in-class management team that would learn and understand the production home business and dovetail a solar installation program that worked with our operating platform. That means it works across the operating platforms of all the new home builders, and it works particularly well. We wanted to make sure that when we found a new home for SunStreet that would help advance its mission, that it was a place where our people could thrive side by side with the management team of the acquiring company. Sunnova was just that home. This wasn't a reflexive, momentary decision for us.
It was a decision of care over time. We didn't have a burning need to do a transaction. It was a strategic opportunity to align with a best-in-class participant so that our team could see a future that was very bright in the way they would go forward and the way that they would provide a production orientation to somebody in the solar space. Sunnova was that marriage.
Great. Thank you for that additional detail. I think it's helpful. You talked about how you guys support other home builders. Can you give us a high level sense of what percentage of your historic current business is with external non-Lennar home builders? As you guys build your vision together, what percentage do you think this could become in the next year or perhaps in five years? In other words, is 20% of your business now external versus the expectation in the future that, well, I guess it'll all be owned up by Sunnova, so technically it's all external to them. Does that non-Lennar home builder mix increase meaningfully over time? Is that part of the vision?
Stuart, you mind if I take that one? Go ahead.
I'm going to let John go ahead and take that.
We're not going to get into details, Phil. We could maybe do that next week again on as far as what the breakout is. I don't think you're too far from an estimate there. I would say that. Very clearly, what we're going to be able to do here is expand the number of third-party home builders given our platform, our products, the different financing products that we have, the service that we offer, and everything else as far as service technicians to homeowners. All of that's going to be able to ramp this business up quite significantly. We do expect, obviously, Lennar, I'll leave it to Stuart to comment on his expected growth as a company in terms of building new homes and so forth.
Clearly that market is on fire right now as far as the pace of home sales in the United States is certainly near record, if not at record. It's a very strong market. Lennar is doing extremely well. Again, I'll let Stuart comment specifically on Lennar. That means there's a lot of other home builders out there that need this service and capability that we now jointly can offer together as one company. Given, again, what's going on around me, and I'm literally sitting in ground zero of this energy catastrophe, I think it just underlines the point that we've got to change. I think a lot of other home builders now get that if they didn't get it before, and we're looking forward to growing that business quite strongly.
Again, it was a big driver for us doing this transaction is, this is about growth, it's about profitable growth, it's about expanding and the vision for the company, and to fulfill the vision that I have, and now Stuart and I have both together. Stuart, do you want to make any comments specifically around Lennar?
Sure. I'll keep this very brief because we're nearing the end of a quarter, and we don't give inter-quarter updates. You've heard from the other builders as they've reported, including us with our last earnings call. The housing market has been robust, to say the least. This new home market as Sunnova enters is a fertile ground for growth in the solar rooftop business. As we and others in our industry look ahead, it looks like there's a growth trajectory over the next few years that looks very strong. This is a really good time for Sunnova to be entering this part of the market with an operating team that is up and running and can execute seamlessly as Sunnova grows the business. This is an exciting time for a transaction like this.
We knew it when we came together. We believe it even more fervently today.
Great. Thanks, guys. One last one, if I may. John, clearly you're matching the strength of one network with a new network that you're adding to your overall system and platform. Can you just talk through how this integration will occur and what do you expect? Specifically, I know you have hundreds of dealers and some are exclusive and master dealers. Do those guys get priority here? How do you expect to go about the matchmaking and for that to ramp up? Thanks.
Yes. Thanks, Phil. Yes, you're right. This grows our dealer and partnership base with regards to installers quite significantly. We welcome them on board the Sunnova family and team as well, and looking forward to having them. Look, I think that this opens up more possibilities for our existing dealers that didn't exist before. I think it's very clear. Most importantly, we maintain our commitment not to compete with our dealers. It was very important to me. I don't engage in acquisitions. This is our first one, major one as a company, and I don't do it lightly. I'm very particular as I know Stuart is looking at the details of the transition, the people. The people is what matter most. Those people matter with not just employees, which management teams on board we're looking forward to bringing.
Again, we have a need for people given our high growth in our existing business. This is a very important piece for us to get this talent that SunStreet has, and it's high-quality talent as Stuart was referencing. On top of that, we get high-quality talent in their installer base, their dealer base, and it aligns. There's perfect alignment. We don't have any channel conflicts and issues and so forth. Everything's aligned. Again, we're paying attention to the details. The people are the most important to us, and that extends into the installers and dealers. We know that this would be exciting for not only the SunStreet installers, but also our existing dealers as well. There's a lot of opportunity here.
Great. Thanks, John. Congrats to you both again.
Thank you.
Your next question is on the line of Carl Reichardt with BTIG.
Morning. Morning John? Morning Stuart? First, just a big picture one. Either of you have a sense of solar mandates? Obviously, we've seen it in California for new residential construction. I'm curious what you think about the prospects for that occurring in states outside of California over the next few years.
Stuart, you want to take that one?
Sure. Look, I think that and as I noted in my remarks, Carl. Good morning to you. California has kind of led the way with an all-new home solar mandate. It's very clear that states across the country are becoming more and more focused on alternative energy sources and solar in particular. While other states haven't yet gone the route of the full mandate of solar across the new home market, it certainly seems directionally that it's building steam, and that various states are considering how they will approach the same. Now, this is not an equal application across the country, but there's definitely directionally a movement in this direction. We saw this coming at Lennar.
We knew that we either had to ramp up our SunStreet initiative, which was going to become more and more important, or partner with someone who was able to do that. That's exactly why we picked Sunnova.
Thanks, Stuart. That makes sense. Then sort of a bigger picture question for you. You've talked before about not just monetizing the sale of the new home, but thinking about the services that the new homeowner will need on a go-forward basis and trying to work to monetize those to some degree, and this seems a nod in that direction. Can you talk maybe just bigger picture strategy-wise about other service sets within the new home market that you're actively looking through investments to potentially monetize or maybe a review of the ones that you have? Thanks very much.
Boy, that's an interesting question. We're not quite at a point where we're looking at the components of the home building business as a service or fee generator. The energy component is being looked at as we did with other elements of the home ownership journey as an opportunity to innovate and to build best-of-breed programs. You saw that very recently with Lennar's Connected Home that's powered by Ring and eero and others. We are partnering with groups that are focused on providing those services that are going to make home ownership ever more delightful to our customer base.
This, of course, is exactly what we're doing here with Sunnova today, is we're partnering with a group, with a management team that will make home ownership and the delivery of energy to the home a more delightful experience for our customers, and also appeal to a growing desire to be part of the sustainable movement in the country. That's kind of piece by piece, how we're looking at the innovation cycle and the services that are provided with the homes that we deliver.
Great. Thank you, Stuart. Thanks, John. Congratulations.
You bet.
Thank you.
Your next question is from the line of Julien Smith with the BOA.
Hi. Good morning, c an you hear me?
We can. Good morning, Julien.
Hey. Congratulations, guys. Well done. Listen, I know there's a lot of sensitivity about what exactly you can say, but can we talk about just the margin and how, in whatever metrics you can talk about today, how that compares relative to what you do on today, right? Now, I don't want to be specific on metric because I'll let you decide how you want to talk about that, but I want to try to get more details on that front. Separately, I get you don't want to talk about specific volumes. Understood. Can you talk about the breakdown between microgrid? How much value, how meaningful is that as a function of this transaction relative to upsells, and then relative to, shall we say, just building out this business in California and beyond, right?
If you can give us a little bit of order of magnitude of those three pieces that I think you're speaking to each of those. Those are the three buckets.
Yeah. Certainly, Julien. I can't give into, and we're not going to break out unlevered returns across different channels and the customer bases and such. I will tell you that, again, as I mentioned earlier, the unit-level economics, the unlevered returns are going to be higher here because of the reduction or elimination of the acquisition cost. It'll definitely be accretive and positive in regards to unlevered returns. I'll just have to leave it there, and I'm sure you'll grill me more in the earnings call here next week on that. In terms of what else we see out there and what parts of the transaction, look, I think that this is a very compelling transaction for both Lennar and Sunnova. Very compelling. This is about growth.
This is about not only on a forward basis, but upselling the existing customers with SunStreet, that roughly 40,000 that don't have the storage, for instance. We can upsell that. We can upsell a lot of load management. We can do a lot of different things and offer different services as the technology has changed rather recently, and it continues to accelerate and change as you well know. In addition to that, we have 250,000 customers that never signed up for solar in the previous 10 years, that we certainly will go back in and work with Lennar to upsell them on service here. Because again, I think it's pretty obvious that this is needed out there and consumers really have more and more demand for it. Again, sitting here in the middle of this energy crisis is a stark example and reason for that need.
The other is that Lennar is clearly, in my opinion, the leader in home building and certainly a leader in the home building industry. When you look at the size of growth that they have in terms of unit numbers, we look to be able to expand that offering out to multiple areas and offer that same service and technology and processes that we're getting with SunStreet to other home builders. This is a lot about significant growth. What I would say is on regards to the microgrids, you would need to have a strong partnership with a company of the size, scale, and vision that Lennar has in the development community to be able to start to do this and to integrate all the different homes of the community and different structures, and to have a true microgrid operation.
This is enhancing our grid services, which we will have news on that shortly as far as that NEPOOL deal that we did back in October. This also enhances those grid service opportunities. This really catapults us into what we think is a leadership position as far as moving towards what the communities of the future will look like with regards to energy consumption. That's a part of this transaction. It's a part of the consideration of the transaction as well. I think in any way you look at it, whether it's the current base that we get, the ability to upsell, the growth potential, and then the vision and what we'll turn into reality of microgrid. Any which way you look at it, this is very compelling for our shareholders.
Stuart, I don't know if you want to comment any on the microgrid side of things any more than you have previously.
Yeah. I'll just add and say that John said it very well, that the development of a microgrid system is going to take some effort, some focus, attention. There's going to have to be a commitment on both sides, the innovator side, as well as we, the community developer, to coordinate a program that develops the way that the microgrid system of the future will operate. It's something that Lennar has a tremendous appetite for. We look forward to working together with people who are expert in this industry to help frame the way that communities will work on energy delivery in the system and fulfill that promise of an uninterrupted life that is at the core of the Sunnova mission.
Okay. All right. We'll leave it there for next week. Stuart, thank you for your civic engagement as well.
Okay.
Everyone, good day.
Thanks, Julien.
Your next question is on the line of Michael Weinstein with Credit Suisse.
Hey, morning. This is Maheep here on behalf of Mike at Credit Suisse. John, thanks for taking the questions. Just high level, just want to understand on the deal, like is this accretive to the net contracted customer value? Do you see it more accretive to the customer growth rate going forward, or it's kind of a mix of both of those?
Maheep, w e'll stay at a high level. We'll get into that next week when we review all the numbers and guidance for 2021. What I will say again is that this is accretive across the board and is accretive very relatively quickly, particularly in the customer growth side, also on the major metrics. You referenced the net contracted customer value. Yes, I'll tell you by when and relatively how much, in addition to that, adjusted EBITDA plus P&I and recurring operational cash flow. This is significantly accretive to us and it's something that we see impact this year and certainly in 2022 and beyond. Again, I'll just leave it at that we'll get into more of that next week, if you don't mind.
Yeah, sure. Totally understand that. No, that call was definitely helpful. Just in terms of strategy again, like does this kind of kick off a general in-house customer acquisition operation for you guys with similar partnerships? Probably building on that, does this restrict or limit you for future partnerships, for either of you, with other solar companies or other home builders in the market?
I'll go first, then I'll let Stuart talk to his side of it. Absolutely not, in terms of limiting us. We've talked quite a bit earlier about using this platform to expand and to go into other home builders, right? We're quite certain that's going to happen. We're going to be driving that. Let me talk a little bit more about the platform that we get with SunStreet. It took years to perfect the processes that are specific to a home builder to not interrupt at all the home buying process, to actually make it a better experience for home buyers and customers. The processes are very specific. We will go through and we will keep all those details. We're keeping everybody around all these processes. We're incorporating them into our processes and will be a separate division, if you will, as it is today with regards to homebuilder.
The technology that goes around that and automating a lot of these processes is something we're also getting. This enables us to have a very clear, specific, and very good customer experience with the home buyer coming in. This sounds trivial, and I can tell you it is not. You cannot interfere at all with closing on a home. You cannot do that. To understand how those processes and those steps go with all the different parties in the process, if you will. You think about you buying a home. There's a lot going on there. There's a lot of people involved, right? This is what they perfected. They automated it. That's in the technology that happens to be in the same technology platform they already have.
We're going to be able to integrate those technologies and processes together and immediately be able to offer this fantastic, well worked on and earned SunStreet process to all these home builders across the United States and hopefully beyond. There's a lot of technology and processes we're picking up with SunStreet, too, and that's critically important. Stuart, do you want to talk any more about his question?
Sure. Let me just say that as far as Lennar is concerned, we have a history. It's a well-defined history of working with innovation and innovators. That is we pick a horse, we pick a horse that we think is the right participant in an industry and that's where we spend our time and our focus. We have chosen Sunnova as best in class and that's where we're going to spend our time. When you ask are we constrained to work with others or anything else, it's just the way that we focus is we get focused on an innovation cycle with a partner, and that's where we spend our time, our money, our energy, and that's what you'll expect from Lennar going forward in this space.
Got you. Thanks a lot for the color both John and Stuart and congratulations on the deal. Bye.
Thank you, Maheep. Thank you.
Okay, your next question is on the line of Mark Strouse with JP Morgan.
Yeah, good morning? Thanks for taking our questions and congrats on the deal. Stuart, you've got a very diversified geographic footprint. I'm just curious, of the 40,000 or so solar installations that you've done, what percentage would you say are outside of California? Can you say kind of maybe what a number two, number three kind of markets are for you so far anyway?
Well, listen, John has carefully managed the specifics of the information that's gone out, so I don't want to get over my skis in this regard. I will say directionally the way we thought about this space was we concentrated our efforts in California at first so that we could develop the mechanism, the plan, the programming of dovetailing solar installation with home production. I think John's done a great job of explaining why SunStreet is differentiated. It grew up in the production home business, and we had to focus and concentrate our efforts in order to build the platform. We've been steadily expanding beyond the boundaries of our California operations, and the exact numbers and percentages perhaps will lead to John's conference call next week.
Okay, thanks. Completely understand the rationale going forward here. Just a quick question on the existing 40,000 customers that you have. Were those all sold as part of the upfront cost of the home, or is there anything, John, that might be kind of your traditional loan lease PPA type recurring cash flow?
Yeah. The structure is that the recurring cash flows are not coming with the customers. A portion of them were sold in terms of a loan construct and then since paid off. Whether that was rolled into the mortgage up front or mortgage later, that has occurred. The contracted cash flows are something that we could down the road take a look at bringing on board, so to speak, and I'll leave that where it is. Those were fully financed essentially beforehand. We don't see any capital requirements for that cash flows there. At the same time, though, to be very clear about it, those customer relationships are ours now through this acquisition.
We will be calling those customers and asking them if they would like to upgrade to storage and other services and then be able to, again, as I've referenced, go back to the 250,000 and counting other homeowners that don't have any solar at all even and ask them if they would like solar and storage and other services that we offer and we're quite confident they will. It gives us a nice platform and there might be some opportunities to get additional cash flows from this existing base over a period of time. Right now it's certainly not going to require any capital from us outside this acquisition amount that we're paying in stock.
Okay. Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Your next question is on the line of Ben Kallo with Baird.
Hey, good morning, guys? Congratulations.
Morning. Thanks, Ben.
Thank you. I had a question. From your business model of owning the assets, how does that change from a new home buyer just going out and selling someone solar in a PPA or a lease?
Yeah, Ben, it doesn't change. A lot of these customers were put under a lease construct. Here, what's really nice is that we're taking a highly sophisticated technology-enabled platform that is SunStreet's, combining it with our sophisticated platform with all the different products on it. One of the things that were very attractive to Stuart and myself is that we're able to now broaden the portfolio offerings to all the new home buyers that are coming in to Lennar and the other builders. We have the platform, the pull in the platform. When you look at it, we'll be able to offer leases and power purchase agreements and loan-onlys and all the different variations that go with that. As you know, we're a leader.
No one has a better and wider product array than we do, we continuously focus on never letting up on that and continue to launch out more products than anybody else out there. This is something where we're going to be able to offer a lot more than what was able to be offered historically, consumers are going to choose. That's again, the big part of this is we wanted to be the best at delivering energy services, new energy services to the home buyer and continuously innovate, continuously offer whatever the customer wants at the end of the day. Our business model will not change, but the availability and options and the service contracts the new Lennar home buyers and other home buyers be able to buy are going to really expand here. It's quite exciting.
Just because I've got a couple questions while we're on the call here, just about what's within SunStreet. I heard you say that there weren't channel conflicts, but is there a sales team within SunStreet, and are there construction crews within SunStreet?
No. We have the exact same account management. We're pleased to have those folks already on board, so to speak. It's our exact same model.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much, guys. I appreciate it. Congrats on the deal.
Thank you.
Your next question is from the line of Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James.
Yeah, thanks. This is Peyton with questions. Following up on one of the earlier points about the geographic footprint, is there overlap between where Sunnova currently, the states where Sunnova currently deploys and where Lennar has new builds? Are there any new geographies where Lennar has a presence but Sunnova does not?
I'll take that one. The overlap is 100%. We're in these markets: California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Texas, et cetera. There will be other markets that Sunnova will expand into this year, and we'll get a little more specific on that as we open those markets up. For instance, Washington, D.C., we just opened that up last week. So let me put it this way, wherever Stuart wants us to go and is building high-quality communities, we'll go. That goes with the other home builders as well. We aim to again serve our partnership with home builders across the country, and wherever they want us to go, we'll go. I do think that just the math itself, there's a high degree of overlap there. We'll continue to expand geographic-wise this year. Frankly, it's going to be more than I thought at the beginning of this year. Right now, there's 100% overlap.
Understood. Yeah, maybe a more kind of hypothetical question. This is the first acquisition, as you said, that Sunnova has engaged in. Is this a one-off, or can you envision buying new businesses, public or private, going forward?
Well, I can't comment on future M&A. Look, the way I look at this is it was very important to me as the founder of Sunnova to find the right people and partner to do my first major deal with Sunnova, and I found that. Stuart and I have talked a lot about the compatibility of the management teams, the compatibility, frankly, you've seen on this call, I think, between Stuart and myself and the compatibility that I know exists between our employee bases. That's hard to find. For those who are really good and astute, who I listen to, like Stuart, and doing acquisitions, know that it starts with the people first, and the people are probably one, two, and three, and oftentimes management teams and Chief Executive Officers skip that over and don't pay attention to it. We are very focused on it, as you can see.
When we see alignment like this, we will do a transaction. Will we be more acquisitive as we move forward in time? Most likely, yes. It has to be the right deal. This one's going to be a tough one to hurdle, I'll tell you that. This just checks all the boxes for me. Again, I was very cautious. I want to make sure that not only anybody can announce a deal, but you have to execute on that. I'm quite certain, Peyton, that you and everybody else out there on the shareholders and analysts are going to hold me accountable, make sure that the transaction will be integrated efficiently, and we will execute on the numbers that we've laid out. I'm quite confident that we will. Will that lead to other transactions and such down the road? I absolutely think it will.
This one's going to be a tough one to beat all the way around.
Appreciate it.
Let me just add to that, John. I don't mean to overstep my bounds.
Go ahead.
I'm certainly not going to answer about the future of M&A within Sunnova, but I will say on the receiving end, that the comprehensive due diligence and evaluation that was done on our SunStreet program, the competence and the focus that was brought to bear on both underwriting the operation itself, the mechanisms, and the people, especially around this particular acquisition is indicative to us as investors in this company that this is a company that we want to be working with. Because if there is another acquisition in the future, the care and the focus and attention will be given to make sure that it's a winner for the future and for the shareholders.
Thanks, Peyton.
Okay. Your next question is on the line of Chris Souther with B. Riley.
Hey guys? Thanks for taking the question there. Congrats on the deal here. Can you just talk a bit about the opportunity with the existing 40,000 customers? Are there service agreements that Sunnova will be taking over, or is it really more around the upsell with battery and other potential services? Around the integrating larger communities and microgrids, is this something you would do with, you think the existing base or more likely a clean sheet approach you'd take with a new community development?
Yeah. Thanks, Chris. I'll take that first and see if Stuart has any comments. The existing base, yes, the vast majority of those do have service contracts. We will be providing the service there. I think the real value, of course, is the ability to upsell batteries specifically, but again look for load management, look for EV charging, look for generators, look for fuel cells possibly down the road. Look for a lot of different things we're going to be able to offer that base. That's quite exciting. We'll get on top of that right away as soon as the transaction closes, and we're aligning all of our capabilities to be able to do that here at Sunnova.
In terms of the microgrid, the answer is, we will look at both possibilities, but I would say that what's really interesting about the microgrid is imagine, as you put it, Chris, a clean sheet of paper, sitting here again, what's going on around me with regards to the centralized grid's failure. If you could do it all over again, what would you do? Would you do the same thing? I think all of us, at least sitting here in Houston, would say, no, we want something completely different. That's where this gets very exciting is to work with Lennar and develop the communities of the future here today. We have the technology, we have the capabilities. We'll develop more software technologies. Sunnova often should be seen as more of a software company with services.
We're going to develop that with this newfound capability with SunStreet, with their technologies, integrating those together and figuring this out, and how do we make the communities of tomorrow happen today with regards to energy services and be able to provide a much better quality of life to those home buyers in the new Lennar communities. Stuart, I don't know if you have any more comments on the microgrid topic here.
No, I think you said it well, John. Just say that, again, this is a very important focus for our company as we think about the evolution of a sustainable community and an uninterrupted life for our customers as they battle the elements. This is a core focus of our company and will continue to be.
That's great. Appreciate the color there. Just maybe a last one here. Could you maybe discuss just historically what the lease and PPA versus loans historically for SunStreet were? I think you'd mentioned leases as potentially being more prevalent than I had initially thought.
Yeah. In the new homebuilder market, or new home market rather, it predominantly has been leases. People have typically chosen the lease. It does go well with the storage. It fits better with paying on a flat rate per month than a price per kilowatt hour. I think that would be something considerably higher than 50% historically. We certainly see that continuing as we move forward. It is just a lot easier with the transaction when you get into the details. A new home transaction, a purchase by a new home buyer is materially different than a retrofit new home purchase. With that material difference, in terms of financial structures to pay for the service that we provide, home buyers have typically chosen leases.
I know that's a bit counterintuitive that folks, why don't you roll it in the mortgage? What I think is exciting here is you're going to have the ability to do either, whether you want to have a loan, you want to have a lease, and certainly you can acquire through a PPA as well. I don't think that it's going to change very much as far as a lease versus a loan. At the end of the day, again, I just want to highlight the fact that we're indifferent and agnostic to whether somebody wants to choose a lease, PPA or loan. Our joint, and I know Stuart shares this is, it's up to the customer. We want to give the customer what she wants, and that's the most important to us above all else.
No, that's good to hear. Maybe just the last one. On SunStreet, it looks like in one of your presentations you had talked about over 8,500 solar deployments in fiscal 2019. Was 2020 a similar type of number, or is that something you haven't disclosed yet?
I don't think we've disclosed that yet. We can talk to it next week, but I would think it would be reasonable to assume that the business was growing, and I'll just leave it at that, and we'll talk about it more next week.
Okay, that's great. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Your next question is from the line of Kashy Harrison with Simmons Energy.
Good morning? Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the partnership.
Thanks.
Yeah. John, a quick clarification question. Will Sunnova be Lennar's exclusive residential solar and storage provider in perpetuity, or is this an agreement that lasts, I guess, over the next five years based on the earn-out commentary from the release?
Yeah. It's definitely multiple years, four-plus years. What I would say is that, again, I'll let Stuart comment on this, what was important to us is again, it goes back to people, it goes back to compatibility of our teams and the way that we look at partnerships, and we take them very seriously. We feel that we're certainly not infallible. We make mistakes, but we treat people with respect, whether they're technology partners, whether they're contractors that are dealers, and we pride ourselves on having good partnerships that are long-term. We don't get into a relationship that's transactional in nature and short-term in nature. What I can tell you, and again, I'll let Stuart speak for himself, is that that's what I found in Stuart and the Lennar team. They do not get into relationships very lightly. They're not transactional.
They think long-term, and they're dedicated to their partners as we are. That was really what started the process of discussion that led to the transaction that we're talking with you today. We certainly see this as multiple years, beyond any sort of contract term or anything else. That by itself is very long, but we certainly see this much longer than that, and we will do everything that we can to be a great partner for Stuart and the Lennar team. Stuart, did you want to comment any on this?
Sure. Look, if you look historically at Lennar, relationships with Lennar, we tend to be very focused on building long-standing relationships. If you've listened to Lennar's calls, you've heard of Lennar's builder of choice focus around the people that we do business with in building our homes and delivering products to our customers. We are the builder of choice for many because we focus on loyalty, we focus on working together. That's the partnership that we found with Sunnova. For the next years, we are in a committed relationship
Even beyond that, you can expect that with this partnership working as we expect it to, that this will be a very longstanding relationship that will not only be about providing service to our customers, but innovating for the future. That entanglement is very sticky.
That's great color from both of you. Thank you. Then maybe just a quick follow-up for Stuart. I was wondering if you could just discuss your new home market share within California based on 2020 results. Looking through your investor deck, it seems like you have a very big presence there. Was just wondering if you could provide some details on share and then on top of that, if you have any expectations, based on what you talked about in the past, of your views on your ability to grow market share within the state of California, and I'll leave it there. Thank you for the time.
I don't have the specific number on market share, we are California's largest builder, we expect to be continuing to grow in that marketplace. I'll leave it at that. We have a large presence in California, I will say parenthetically that starting very early on, five, six years ago, I don't remember the exact number of years, every Lennar home has been built with a solar installation included in the price of the home. We're proud of that. We predated the 2020 mandate, kind of led in the direction of solar across our platform, as the largest builder in California.
That's great. Thank you.
You bet.
Your final question is from the line of Marshall Carver with Heikkinen Energy.
Yes, thank you. I know you're not giving guidance, but I'm hoping to get a historical number. How many new solar customers did SunStreet have last year?
In 2020?
Right.
We'll get that out. I just answered that question a little earlier, I apologize, a bit ambiguous, I think 2019 was 8,500 customers, and I don't want to trip over any issues with information with regards to whether it's been disclosed by Lennar yet or by us. You would think that business would be growing quite nicely. As we look forward in time even with a truncated closing of, say, April 1 of this year, you would have a pretty significant addition to our growth in 2021 and beyond.
Thank you. One follow-up. When you talk about the deal being accretive on a customer and EBITDA basis, I'm assuming you mean accretive per share, or is it just accretive on a total company basis?
Again, I don't want to trip up. We'll talk more about guidance for 2021 and beyond next week. What I would say is that my answer is both. I watch very carefully, for instance, net, as you well know, Marshall, net contracted customer value per share to hold me accountable for equity issuance. I think that's the right thing to do is grow value per share, but then also overall value as well, which typically with adjusted EBITDA plus P&I or recurring operational cash flow is looked at on an overall basis rather than a per share basis, but certainly encourage everybody to divide by the share count as well if they would like to do so.
Thank you, and congrats on the deal.
Thank you.
I would now turn the call back to John Berger for any closing remarks.
Well, thank you. As events here in Texas and elsewhere prove when you look at the energy crisis that's going around, power crisis that's going around me and my team and my new family with the SunStreet employees, Stuart and myself recognize that this kind of backdrop only proves convincingly why this deal makes complete sense. It made sense before, but it certainly, what's going on around us without a doubt proves that this is not only a transaction that makes sense but is desperately needed. We will roll out new communities for home buyers across the country in a very strong home buying market. We're looking forward to that growth opportunities to expand, to add the technologies and the processes that are very specific, that have been years in the making that come with SunStreet to our platform, our software platform.
We're so pleased and honored to have Stuart and Lennar choose Sunnova as a home for SunStreet, and its employees. Most of all, we're looking forward to, and I'm personally looking forward to all the SunStreet employees that come on board joining the Sunnova family. We're looking forward to having you being part of the family. We have a lot of growth. We have a lot of things to do. We needed a lot of people, and we're looking forward to having you on board and joining our family. With that, I want to thank Stuart for joining us and looking forward to having a very strong partnership for years and years to come. Thank you.
Thank you for joining today's conference call, y ou may now disconnect.