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Since I work in home solar, I can't resist focusing on the amazing developments happening here. What many homeowners don't know is that they can have solar installed on their roofs without owning the panels or paying the high upfront costs.

Homeowners want solar power. It's cost-effective. We invented a business model that makes it really easy for consumers to switch to solar - and that's solar-as-a-service.

Since Sunrun introduced solar as a service in 2007, it has become the preferred way for consumers to go solar in the nation's top solar markets. Sunrun has deployed more than $2 billion in solar systems and has raised more than $300 million in equity capital.

Before solar, before Sunrun, if consumers wanted electricity, there was a monopoly of someone who told you how much it costs.

Consumers used to think they had to compromise with solar. It was, 'Okay, I'm doing the right thing for the environment; it's cool to see the panels. I have to compromise on the cost and convenience side.' And now they no longer have to. On the cost side, it's cheaper, and on the convenience side, we set it all up.

Rooftop solar is the first true form of competition that utilities have ever faced, and that is why they're attacking it.

With the right infrastructure in place, home solar will be recognized publicly as affordable, easy, and smart, and every new home built in the developed world can have clean energy sources built into it.

I think, in a lot of places, the solar panels are a badge of honor; they're trendy. If you go to Hawaii or Japan, people even install fake solar panels because it's cool and it's popular. And so I think solar panels have gotten a lot more attractive. They're sleek, black, they look good on a roof.

Battering down solar cells on the roofs of Wal-Marts in California. I think that will be some of the highest-return investments that anyone ever makes.

We believe widespread adoption of home solar will significantly improve life in cities by phasing out polluting coal plants, eliminating miles of ugly new transmission lines, and ensuring cleaner, healthier lives.