MARCH 24, 2021

Borrego Named Top Commercial Solar EPC for 2020

Despite the headwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. solar industry enjoyed a record year in 2020, with 19.2 GW-DC installed, a 43% increase over 2019 according to the recently issued U.S. Solar Market Insight report. But it wasn’t just a big year for the industry as a whole. Borrego also achieved a new milestone: we’ve been named the number-one, non-residential solar (better known as the commercial and industrial segment) engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company by Wood Mackenzie in the 2020 Year In Review PV Leaderboard data.

Record market share

Borrego has held the second and third spots on the leaderboard before, but this is the first time the company has earned the top spot. Our EPC group completed some 250 MW of commercial solar projects, finishing 2020 with 11.3% of the 2 GW-plus national market — more than double that of our nearest competitor and the highest market share any company has achieved over the past five years. A really strong finish put us over the top, as we hit 21.5% market share in the fourth quarter of the year.

We achieved this success in what was otherwise a flat year for the sector. Although the U.S. residential and especially the utility solar segments enjoyed strong growth, the C&I sector lagged behind. But our team overcame this sluggishness, taking advantage of two of the healthiest non-residential state markets — New York and Massachusetts — where we also held the number-one leaderboard positions and our installations accounted for more than two-thirds of our total national numbers.

A team effort

This is the type of success that doesn’t happen every quarter, let alone for an entire year, and I want to congratulate the EPC team on their efforts. I also want to note the development team’s role in this win, since a good portion of the work brought to PTO (permission to operate) by the EPC crew were projects developed by Borrego as well. It’s another example of our deep, talented bench and the strategic synergies among our businesses, as this type of cross-team collaboration is a big reason why we have become an industry leader.

Another inflection point

I’m also struck by the similarities between 2009 and 2020. Back in ’09, the country was also reeling as it emerged from the Great Recession and Borrego decided to build on our leadership in one sector — at that point, residential and small commercial solar — while also working toward becoming a leader in another — large commercial/distributed generation (DG) projects. We are at a similar inflection point in 2021, moving to become a market leader in utility scale while continuing to grow our DG business.

I hope we don’t have to wait another decade to achieve market leadership in the utility market, but I believe that in the not-too-distant future we will be celebrating Borrego topping the leaderboard in both segments. Our ambitious “Gigawatt Revolution” plans are bearing fruit, as we stay true to our mission to accelerate the widespread adoption of renewable energy.