Solar Panel Company Plans a Stock Offering A solar panel installer, SolarCity, filed with regulators to raise up to $201 million in an initial public offering that could help rekindle investor appetite for clean tech stocks. Shares of solar panel manufacturers have performed poorly in the last two years as falling panel prices erased profits. But those lower prices have spurred demand for solar systems in the United States, helping companies like SolarCity. SolarCity was founded in 2006 by brothers Lyndon and Peter Rive along with their cousin, Elon Musk, a co-founder of PayPal and chief executive of Tesla Motors. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SolarCity said it had more than 31,600 solar system customers as of June 30, compared with 5,775 on Dec. 31, 2009. The company's total revenue was $46.6 million in the three months ended June 30, compared with $13 million a year earlier.