Citra Solar Crius Energy Trust (TSX:KWH.UN), today announced the launch by Crius Energy Trust LLC of a new stand alone solar brand, Citra SolarTM, to focus on capturing value in the fast-growing solar sector and complement the company's well-differentiated portfolio of energy brands, product offerings and distribution channels. The new brand allows Crius to leverage its diversified sales and marketing platform to reach customers through more of its channels. Initially, Citra SolarTM services will be offered to customers of Frontier Communications, a strategic marketing partner of Crius Energy.
The launch of Citra Solar follows on Crius Energy's introduction of solar services in September 2013 through its network marketing distribution channel, which saw immediate success and has continued to expand rapidly. That success points up a nationwide trend: Residential solar adoption continues to grow across the US, with solar representing the second-largest type of new energy generation capacity added in 2013, second only to natural gas. Amid this rapid growth, the introduction of the Citra Solar brand enables Crius to better scale its solar program and provides it with the flexibility to capture value by participating across the solar value chain.
"We are confident that this distinctive new addition to the Crius family of brands will allow us to accomplish three goals: leverage our existing distribution channels to reach more customers, increase our total volume of solar capacity sold and increase our margin per solar customer through a more integrated solar offering," said Michael Fallquist, CEO of Crius Energy Trust and Crius Energy. "Solar will play an important role in the generation of power in the decades to come and we are pleased that our diversified platform will enable more Americans to realize the benefits of this clean and affordable source of energy."