Two days before Christmas last month, Medford-based Purelight Power sent more than 100 layoff notices to its staff. The solar installation company was closing operations in nine states. This included more than 80 workers here in Southern Oregon. This has had a rippling effect throughout the communities where Purelight operated. CEO JD Beck blamed the Republican One Big Beautiful Bill, which sunsetted federal solar incentives at the end of 2025, for eliminating the company’s profitability.
Full disclosure: I worked for a locally-based competitor of Purelight Power for three years. Based in Southern Oregon, the company (True South Solar) had very mixed feelings about Purelight. On the one hand, they were successfully installing a lot of solar on rooftops across the U.S. Other companies were employing similar sales and growth strategies–Purelight was just more successful doing so than most.
On the other hand, Purelight wasn’t getting high points on system design, installation quality, solar equipment selection, or post-sale customer service. They were coercing homeowners into loans of up to 30 years to pay off system and installation costs. Their business model worked best when, in the early 2020’s,
- interest rates were low, and
- consumers were seeking ways of investing in their homes to increase equity and home energy efficiency.
Purelight took advantage of these market conditions. It’s ironic that the company didn’t also take advantage of generous state and utility incentives for their homeowner customers. These incentives would have enabled homeowners to save a significant amount of money over the life of their solar installations. But:
- Purelight was giving salespeople bonuses based on customers’ contract price, and
- The company eschewed adding additional staff and all of the bureaucratic paperwork, which could cause delays and bog down the sales process.
There was no incentive anywhere in their business model to apply for these consumer benefits.
Purelight leveraged their relationships with financial partners to offer solar loan products that would, in theory, lower consumers’ overall monthly utility costs. In an ideal world, a consumer would be saving significant sums of money by having solar panels installed on their home over the 30-year lifespan of the system.
Unfortunately, most of Purelight’s customers are unable to achieve significant savings over a base-case scenario because:
- Purelight’s loans had high dealer fees (as much as 50% or more) on loans (with “interest rates” as low as 2%), adding thousands of dollars to the loan principle;
- Loans were written to last as long as 30 years. The amount of interest paid over the life of these loans can be truly astounding.
- Solar electric systems were designed by designers who had little incentive to ask for additional information in cases of uncertainty (this happens somewhat frequently in the solar business), so sub-par designs were handed off to installation crews,
- Installation crews were incentified to knock out as many jobs as possible, which could have led to sloppy work, and
- The equipment they installed was the cheapest available, with empty-promise warranties.
In truth, Purelight and other solar companies are competing against investor-owned utility companies (IOUs). The companies that supply most of the energy to our homes return almost unimaginable annual returns to their investors at the expense of ratepayers. But all Purelight did was to shift those handsome profits from the IOUs to themselves and their investors.
In its heyday, Purelight was significantly out-competing locally-owned solar companies like True South Solar. They heavily invested in marketing, sales training, and door-to-door guerilla marketing tactics. Their efforts paid off and the company was profitable, enriching their top brass and investors. Until it wasn’t profitable.
During my time working at True South Solar, I was impressed with the large footprint that Purelight gained and held in the residential solar installation market in Southern Oregon. When Purelight and other national solar installation companies expanded into the local territory, True South also began investing in marketing and branding to help it hold its own in what was emerging as a red ocean competitive environment.
The result was that local solar companies became stronger, better at marketing, and developed a better understanding of their place in the market. True South Solar and its peers are stronger and more resilient as a result of its red ocean battles with the likes of Purelight Power.
I was also impressed when, in June 2023, Purelight began offering roofing services. This gave their company and its sales team additional value to every single conversation with a homeowner: a solar system should ideally be placed on a newer roof, as both are likely to last about 30 years. Plus, they could wrap all of the marketing, sales, admin, and financing costs of an entire re-roofing and solar installation project into one loan product with one monthly payment. Brilliant.
It’s always sad to see a company file for bankruptcy. I swear I don’t have an ounce of schadenfreude in my body about the loss. My heart is with all of those folks who lost their jobs right before Christmas. The company was definitely fighting the good fight.
So yes, I had some problems with Purelight’s business model, but at the end of the day, we’re all going to miss them. Rest in Peace, Purelight.
