This morning, Legends Incorporated unveiled Legends Rooftop, a first of its kind ‘on demand’ solar investing platform. Legends Rooftop allows a rising generation of investors to directly purchase renewable generation assets operating on commercial solar farms. Legends Rooftop investors earn cash when their panels generate and sell electricity.
“Locked out of the housing market and unable to install rooftop panels on their homes, millennial investors can’t access the rapidly growing solar infrastructure market”, Legends founder and CEO Lassor Feasley said. “With Legends Solar, you can invest in a single remotely located panel, or a whole rooftop’s worth, with or without the suburban minimansion and white picket fence.” Legends solar panels produce electricity, earn cash, and eliminate pollution and carbon emissions from fossil fuel power plants.
Legends also responds directly to unmet demands for climate action. According to the 2021 Edelman Global Trust Survey, nearly 70% of people believe that government, business, and media are failing to address climate change. “Our investors know they are making a difference because Legends’ on- demand solar investing is transparent and free of financial abstraction”, Lassor stated. “You buy a panel, your panel produces energy, you reap the profits and you directly reduce carbon emissions.” he added.
To date, the commercial solar infrastructure market has been dominated by high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors. Legends Solar’s finance partner, SDC Energy, has structured hundreds of solar financings with private investors. With Legends Rooftop’s on-demand solar investing, millennial investors can finally access commercial solar markets with a minimum purchase of just a few hundred dollars.
“The team at Legends Solar has challenged us to reimagine our approach to raising equity for new solar facilities,” stated SDC Energy President Charles Schaffer. “We look forward to unlocking the solar asset class for a wider and more diverse set of retail investors. By doing this, we will accelerate the transition to a carbon free society and spread its financial benefits more equitably” he continued.
According to the Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial & Gen Z Survey, “the number of millennials who believe that business has a positive impact on society was 47%, marking the first time that figure has dipped below 50%.” Legends Rooftop is designed to respond to this generational skepticism. “Almost all financial institutions have holdings in fossil fuels, utilities, and other stakeholders in the dirty energy economy. With direct equity ownership in commercial solar panels through on demand solar, the investor is not placing their faith in a conflicted bank or institution, but in real operating solar equipment,” Mr. Feasley added.
Millions of homeowners already enjoy the economic benefits of rooftop solar – and take pride in the remarkable environmental impact their home solar creates. But young investors too often find themselves locked out of home ownership, and rooftop solar by extension.
“Up and coming investors are motivated purchasers of rooftop solar panels,” Legends COO Nera Lerner noted. “They are eager for socially and environmentally responsible investments, but few products offer the strong financial returns and verifiable environmental impact of solar investing. We like to say our product delivers ‘Rooftop Solar without the Roof,’ because we’ve tried to reproduce the rich financial and environmental returns homeowners already experience when they install rooftop solar – but for a much wider audience”.
According to the 2021 Morgan Stanley Sustainable Signals survey, 93% of millennials with more than $100K in savings expressed interest in climate themed investments but 71% had concerns about ‘greenwashing’, 61% worried about a lack of tools to measure sustainable impact, and 65% felt sustainable investing was too difficult to understand. “Legends Solar was designed from the ground up to address frustrations millennials express with traditional impact investing products,” Ms. Lerner said.
Anyone who has tried to build rooftop solar knows the barriers that can prevent successful construction. Engineering, logistics, permitting, and financing each pose a potential stumbling block for every single rooftop project - even for seasoned installers.
On-demand solar investing sidesteps those hurdles. On Legends Solar, investors purchase panels after they’ve been sited, permitted, built, and connected to the power grid.
Because investors can purchase solar by the panel and on- demand, they can size their purchase to fit their investment appetite and profile – and start earning dividends immediately. Buyers will no longer be locked out by prohibitively high costs of installation or constrained by the size of their rooftop. In the future, Legends may also allow investors to participate in the financing of new solar projects.
The post-WWII generation benefited from steady returns of America’s real estate and equity markets. Legends is the rising generation’s ticket to profit from a generational boom in renewable energy. Wood Mackenzie & the Solar Energy Industries Association found that $33 billion in new solar investments were made in 2021, composing 46% of all new US electricity generating capacity, up more than 20% from the previous year.
“We want anyone to be able to participate in the transition to carbon free infrastructure – and to share its financial rewards with as many people as possible” said Feasley.
Legends Rooftop opens the door to a rising generation of values-conscious clean energy investors.
