Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips

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How to Use Solar Leases to Grow Your Business
Selling Geothermal as a Hedge Against Rising Energy Prices

How We Financed a 13kW Solar Project on a Church in Massachusetts

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Chris Williams

The following is a guest post from Fred Paris, the instructor of our Solar Installer Boot Camp. Fred tells the story of a church that he worked with, and how the members came together to finance the project for the church. This could provide a model for non-profit clients that you work with that really want solar. If anyone has any questions for Fred, please leave them in the comment section.

I’ve put some comments in [brackets]

Enter Fred Paris

A church wanted to install a 13kW PV system. Intuitively knowing that the $4,000 budget would never cover a system of this size; we went ahead and designed a 13kW system and agreed to test different ideas on how to pay for it.  The survey done, the system designed, and along with some structural reinforcement, the cost would be $65,000. [13kW at $65,000 gross installed cost is $5.00 per watt] We went in knowing the church would not qualify for the 30% federal tax credit or the state tax credit.  Using projections, we knew the system would generate more than a megawatt of energy a month and some $3000 a year in electricity in our 18¢ utility.  The project was presented to the congregation along with a financial plan showing the possible ROI available for a third part owner, if one could one be found.  We agreed to put a plan together.

The plan was to form a for-profit LLC to buy and own the system.  Since profits from an LLC flow down to LLC members [the flows of profits and losses will depend on how you set up the operating agreements], those having tax liabilities would use the federal and state credits of more than $20,000.  The church would continue to pay a lower 14¢ monthly electric bill to the LLC, the LLC would get the SREC payments – we used a conservative projection of a couple hundred dollars a month, [I would use $175/MWh as the lowest effective value of SRECs in Massachusetts, read more about the impact of SREC assumptions on project IRRS here] – and would depreciate the PV system as an asset they own.  Recognizing the startup cost to setup the LLC, along with legal and insurance costs for the life of the arrangement, the financial breakeven for the LLC would be less than 8 years. [The financial break-even is when the Net Present Value goes from negative to positive]  Eight years later, the system is fully paid and the church stops paying the reduced 14¢ rate.  The LLC then votes to donate the system to the church – with perhaps another write-off, and the LLC is dissolved.  Everybody wins.

We need to look beyond the financial dollar amount of PV incentives and consider value.  The same financial incentives can have more or less value depending on the owners’ tax and financial position.  The church’ tax situation was obvious, but there are many for-profit businesses that will not have a significant tax liability. You may want to explore setting up a single-purpose business entity to capitalize on the incentives.  Everybody can win.

I asked Fred a few more questions about article

1 – How much were the legal fees for setting up the LLC, PPA etc? Who did you use to do this? How did you make sure the documents were legit?

Part of the group was a lawyer so he took care of all of the documantation. A simple LLC can be done for $1,000. However, this becomes more expensive and challenge when you have multiple investors because you need to establish clear operating rules for the LLC that explicitly say how the profits, losses, and credits of the LLC will flow.

2 – How many church members were there? Did they each buy into the LLC evenly to make the operating agreement and flow of credits and cash simple?  

There are 5 investors, and no, they did not invest evenly but using a simple percentage of investment equals percentage of SRECs or whatever – this works OK.

3 – How long did the whole process take verus a cash sale? i.e. if it would have taken 4 months to do the project with a cash sales, how long did it take with the LLC?  

Once the decision was made to go with the LLC, the project moved along at a good pace.  Creation of the LLC was not on the critical path - plenty of slack time.

A Few More Notes and Thoughts about Fred’s Project

1 – The investors didn’t want to make money, they wanted the church to save money. This is fundamental in the sales process, understanding what each party wants. If the investors had wanted 15% return over 8 years, the project likely would not have happened. What they wanted was an amazing way to donate to the church (because the church would save money) without loosing any money, because they got it all back!

2 – Their legal fees were essentially free, because one of the church members was an attourney. If legal fees were $10,000. This would have increased the installed cost from $65,000 to $75,000, or from $5.00 per watt, to $5.76 per watt or a 15% increase.

Here are the rough financial analysis for the project that Fred describers. Note, I did not take into account insurance costs, or sales tax, but I did take into account.

If you want to use the same model I’m using, download the basic solar PV model here. If you need a really robust commercial solar PV model download it here. If you need to learn how to finance commercial solar projects, sign up for the Solar MBA.

Here are the project assumptions. IRR = 11.50%.

What happens if legal fees are $10,000?

If the legal fees were not free, they would increase the installed cost from $5.00 per watt to $5.76, this would decrease the IRR from 11.50% (see above) to 8.73%.

How do you determine when the partnership flips?

In a partnership flip, the flow of cash flow changes when a specific party, typically investors, have received a certain IRR or a specific NPV on a number a years. In the case of the churn, the investors only want to make back with lets say a 4% return. If we set our discount rate to 4%, we then need to see when the net present value is equal to zero. We do this calculation by simply adding the present value of each years cash flows together. Here are the results. Notice how the “Cumulative NPV” goes from negative to positive in year 8?

 

Posted in Financing, Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

6 Trends Driving the Solar PV Industry in 2013

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Chris Williams

The following is a review of the general trends that I’m seeing in the renewable energy industries, with a description of what they are, specific citations when needed,  and how these trends impact your business. I’ll be looking at the 3 forms of renewable energy that are most commonly used in residential applications, solar PV, solar thermal, and geothermal heat pumps.

Our focus is on helping small and medium size business, working to arm them with the materials needed to beat the big guys. We want to make sure that Joe the Solar Installer can go head-to-head with SolarCity, and win.

First, I’ll tackle solar PV and then address the other technologies in later posts.

Trend #1 – Driving Down Customer Acquisition Costs 

As hardware costs are getting cheaper and cheaper, acquiring customers is becoming more and more the bottleneck of a the business.

A few interesting notes:

  • SolarCity spent 44% of revenue on customer acquisition in 2012. That means for every dollar in revenue collected, $.44 was spent on marketing and sales. Don’t do this.
  • A report by Berkley Laboratory released in December 2012 says that US installers pay on average $.67/watt acquiring customers, while our German counterparts spend $.07/watt.
  • What’s unclear in the report is whether these costs are higher or lower in a competitive market, where more installers exist but more homeowners know about solar, or a newer market, where few installers exist but there is less buzz.

How does this impact your business?

If you cannot acquire customers, and if you cannot acquire them cheaply enough you will not stay in business. It will be wise to understand what the average customer acquisition costs are in your area then understand what your customer acquisition costs are. If they are above the average, something should be changed.

Trend #2 – Reducing Transaction Costs for Financing Light Commercial Projects.

There is plenty of capital for thousands of residential solar projects, and megawatt projects, but less attention is being paid to the light commercial space, an area where there is huge demand and potential. How many commercial projects do you have in your pipeline that you could close if you could finance them?

The investment in residential and MW projects has been led by institutional banks, they want to standardized the process and remove a significant amount of risk. The same has not happened for commercial solar projects.

Why have commercial roofs not seen the same financing as residential projects?

  • Commercial projects in the built environment have more economic variables than residential projects. Every commercial roof is custom made, and vary greatly in terms of roofing and electrical equipment, compared with residential projects.
  • The due diligence required for a commercial project is only slightly less then megawatt projects, but the revenue potential for an individual project is much smaller.
  • For the above two reasons, it’s hard to put commercial projects into a standard due diligence process that each project can go through quickly and easily, each job tends to be custom from a legal and technical perspective.
  • For the above two reasons, the transactional costs of financing a commercial project by itself can be significant. The total legal and accounting costs for a project, or fund, might start around $40k – $100k. For this reason, it’s clear MW projects are the low hanging fruit. It’s easier to spend $100,000 on legal fees for a 4MW, $20 million project, then $50,000 in legal fees for a 100kW, $500,000 project.
  • Companies that are best suited to sell to commercial PV are companies that have existing relationships: think electrical shops, roofers, general contractors that have existing customers that own huge amounts roof space.
  • The investor profile for light commercial is different. Institutional banks are investing in MWs of solar at a time, while commercial investors tends to be buying into 1 or 2 projects at a time. Investors in commercial projects tend to be to be private investors, small corporations, or real estate holding companies with passive income. This can make finding the right investor much more difficult.
  • The contracts and risks are becoming more widely understood, and cheaper, which will reduce the cost to finance a project.
  • If you’re a solar business owner, executive or manager that needs to learn how to finance commercial solar projects, and you want to get $40,ooo of all the contracts need to finance a project, look into HeatSpring’s “Solar Executive MBA Training”, or download our free commercial solar PV.

Are you positioned well and do you have the experience to sell commercial projects?

  • Are you positioned to sell to commercial clients? You answer will be yes if you have an existing book of business. If you’re having trouble getting interest from clients, you need to be more sophisticated in communicating the financial implications of a project.
  • If you’re serious about commercial solar, do you know how to value a project and screen a project quickly? Can you determine the profitable projects, for you and the client, quickly? hint – “payback” period has nothing to do with it.
  • Do you know the different legal structure that can be used to finance a project?
  • Do you know what tax efficient vs tax inefficient structures are and why an investor would select one structure over another?
  • Do you know how to write a compelling executive summary of the investment/project so the investor will be interested?
  • If you don’t answer yes to all of these questions, then selling, financing and finding an investor is going to be impossible or very, very difficult for you. In our Solar Executive MBA Training, we will provide you the information to answer all of the above questions, and provide access to mentors that have done what you want to do.

Trend #3 – Big Banks Using Debt to Finance Residential Solar, Competing with 3rd Party Financiers

There’s been a lot of buzz about 3rd party residential financiers in the past 4 years. Some think they’re the magic bullet, others not.  It’s impossible to predict. There’s one trend that is clear. Larger banks are getting interested and comfortable in solar – offering capital to homeowners that want to buy solar.

There are pros and cons to everything, debt is attractive to homeowners for one large reason

  • Debt can still be no money down, but the homeowner will save more money from day 1 and eventually own the system.

A few other notes:

  • There are two banks currently offering capital for residential property owners GE Capital and Admirals Bank
  • If you cannot find a good 3rd party financier to work with, and/or you tried working with one and didn’t like it – Try a bank.

How this impacts your business?

  • By increasing the number of offerings, you increase your ability to sell to more clients. Some clients might demand 3rd party financing, while others want solar, don’t have the cash, but don’t want to finance.

Trend #4 – General Contractors Are Flooding the Solar Market, Making it More Competitive for Pure Play Solar Installers

There’s a battle going on the solar industry between general contractors and pure play solar installers. It’s true that the pure play solar guys, the ones that really loved the technology, kept the industry alive long enough to get policy in place that would increase growth, but it’s general contractors that are taking things to the next level.

Just to be clear, when I say general contractor, I’m referring to a general, roofing or electrical contractor where solar accounts for no more than 50% of their business. Pure play solar installers derive 100% of their revenue from solar projects.

It’s becoming clear that more and more general contractors are getting into the solar industry as fast as possible. It’s making life more difficult for pure play solar installers because property owners have so many options. This is a natural progression and it’s good for the industry, the key to both surviving is going to be positioning and focusing on their strength.

Why are general contractors getting into the business?

  1. All the numbers prove it, it’s a huge growth industry.
  2. General contractor’s customers are asking about it. You may turn down a job 1,2,3, or even 4 jobs, but you’re not going to turn down 10, $30,000 jobs.

What are the general contractors strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed?

  1. Strength: they have lower customer acquisition costs because they have an existing book of business and can cross sell from other projects. “Already need a service upgrade or new wiring, have you ever considered solar?”
  2. Strength: They can turn down unprofitable jobs because they have other work to do.
  3.  Weakness: They need to get good at sales and marketing. In the solar industry, most customers don’t come to you, you need to go to them.

How does this impact a pure play solar installation business?

  1. Double down on sales and marketing. Really understand your numbers and metrics in each sales funnel. You’re already better at this and it’s how you’re going to beat general contractors in the solar game.
  2. Double down on understanding the financial implications of investing in solar. Contractors tend to have to do a lot of learning about policy and financials, you’re already good at this. Make sure your sales team doesn’t use “payback”. Get lease and debt products if needed.
  3. Weakness: Keep your installed costs down. Use your volume.

Solar PV Trend #5 – More Transparency and clarity in the SREC Markets will Reduce Risk

2012 was a fun year for SREC markets, and by fun, I mean crazy and unclear. The industry is still trying to figure everything out.

Notable 2012 Experiences:

  1. Prices close below the Massachusetts floor price. Everyone wonders, does the floor even exist? It appears the gold standard is no longer.
  2. Many people start to realize that SREC holders must pay taxes on their SREC income, decreasing the effective value of each REC. Learn more here, “Are SRECs Taxable?”
  3. New Jersey Increase their RPS requirement in an attempt to increase SREC prices.

In 2013, I expect to see more stability and transparency around the SREC markets and here is why:

  1. As markets become larger, there will be less volatility. If the market is small and 10MW facility is put on line, that could oversupply the market, and prices will plunge overnight. As markets increases in size they will be less volatile because added supply will not impact them as much. The same 10MW coming online has much more impact in a market where only 100MW exists, compared to a market where 1,000 MW is online, all else equal.
  2. As more and more dollars get invested, more and more due diligence will be performed and things will become more clear.
  3. State and regulators will get better at communicating what is happening in the market.

How does this impact your business?

  • More clarity and stability around SREC prices will remove risk for system owners, decrease risk will means more projects get build. If you’re in an SREC market, you need to be an SREC master. Make sure to study up, HeatSpring has a number of free courses that can help you.
  • If you need to become an SREC master, take the Free SREC Course: Understanding SRECs.

Solar PV Trend #6 –  Lower Installed Costs

Hard costs will continue to drop for the foreseeable future until the industry maximizing the economies of scale and becomes a true commodity.

This is simple, but you can’t expect it. The relationship has been found that when manufacturing capacity doubles (increases by 100%), the costs of the equipment decreases by 20%.

One of the things that lower manufacturing costs is doing is making manufacturers lose a lot of money. In 2013, expect to see a number of manufactures go out of business. Most manufacturers are losing money, and the only one that will be able to weather the storm are ones with huge amounts of cash in their balance sheets or ones able to raise outside capital.

How does this help your business?

  • Decreased installed costs help the industry as a whole without helping a specific installer or distributor.  It will help the general industry by simply making the technology more available to consumers.
Posted in Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Leave a comment

Solar PV Web Marketing Practices Needed to Beat SolarCity + the Big Guys

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Chris Williams

It’s clear that the bottlenecks to the solar PV industry are become less and less technical (though technical challenges still exist), and more about more about finance, sales and marketings. What does this mean? The companies that are the best at finance, sales, and marketing will have the best chance to survive in the future.

Here’s a few new marketing, sales, and finance resources.

  1. Free Commercial Solar PV Finance Model
  2. Website Optimization for Solar Companies Course
  3. How to Make More Money in the Solar Industry
  4. How Small Solar Companies Can Large Solar Installers with Deep Pockets
  5. How to Position Electrical Distributors for Growth

The companies that have created sales and marketing machines will be able to maintain profitability against competition. The competition will be stiff and it will be David vs Goliath out there. The small solar companies vs the SolarCities of the world. I think the small guys have a chance, and I want you to win.

A huge part of creating a marketing machine is having a well optimized website. Today’s guest post is by Peter Troast from Energy Circle Pro. If you’re super interested in optimizing your website, take our 3 week “Website Optimization for Solar Companies Course” for only $59. If you’re about to redesign or build your website, this course is perfect for you. Learn from a website optimization expert and use YOUR SITE in the class.

Download the full article here.

Internet Marketing Best Practices for Solar Companies

4,000 word document on best practices for website creation and internet marketing for solar companies.

Enter Peter Troast -

Everybody knows that marketing is in the midst of massive upheaval. The rise of Online, the death of the Yellow Pages and most print advertising, the incredible growth in social media. Combine this with the fact that in the solar industry, large, national companies have piles of IPO cash and are spending money like drunken sailors to capture market share. All in all, it makes for a confusing soup. But, there is good news — in this fast changing environment, small, local solar companies that do it right are uniquely positioned to win.

Benchmarking the Big Players

At Energy Circle, we watch the tactics of these major players closely, and we see the following core tactics dominating the world of solar marketing. These are the programs that small, local competitors need to be aware of, and need to match if you’re going to win.

Lease Financing — The concept of solar leasing has revolutionized the solar market. (Chris’s note: Leasing is nice, but it isn’t a magic bullet, SunRun recently got sued because customers were paying MORE for solar power then from the grid)

Strong, Well Communicated Brands — Things like quality advertising, name recognition, and appearance of professionalism.

Aggressive Inside Sales & Telemarketing — The big solar corporations boast multitudes of telemarketers whose job it is to conduct evaluations over the phone.

Exceptional Websites with Tools and Calculators to Evaluate Solar Potential — All the national players have beautifully designed, highly functional websites that provide great user experiences.

Robust Customer Referral Programs — SolarCity, for example, offers its customers $400 for successful referrals and has publicly stated that this is very successful (and, not surprisingly, a major part of their marketing expense.)

Marketing is Changing. Duh.

You don’t need to be an expert to know that the way contracting businesses acquire customers is in the midst of massive upheaval. In the past, we could rely on one or two tactics to drive the bulk of our leads–like the Yellow Pages or Direct Mail–but in today’s world the marketing “quiver” needs more arrows, and we’re lucky if any one approach amounts to more than about 20% of our leads. The bottom line is that we have to be good at a lot of things to win in this environment. And while this may sound intimidating and overwhelming at first, there is good news. The approaches that work today are less costly, require less commitment and, as a result, do not put your precious marketing dollars at risk of failure.

The new world order is to try, test, measure and adjust.

Success in today’s marketing world means using a range of tactics. At Energy Circle, we’ve found that in a typical marketing program, no one tactic delivers more than about 15% of your required leads. So, if you follow this math, you’ll need 6 or 7 different programs in order to accomplish your goals. Yet, it doesn’t have to be intimidating—using the new approaches is less committal than the old approaches, less costly and less risky.We won’t touch on each of these tactics, but here a few of the critical ones that we believe every solar business needs to do well in order to succeed.

9 Tactics that Should be Part of Solar Marketing Plan                 

Your Company Website

Your website serves two core purposes:

  1. It is the first place most prospective customers will go to check you out (so it better not suck.)
  2. If setup well and maintained, it will be a permanent and ongoing source of leads by capturing people searching for solar in your community. (Chris’s Note: Your website should be optimized to turn visitors into 1) site visits and 2) subscribers that might become site visits in the future. That’s it!)

Usability: To maximize potential, ensure that your website boasts a professional appearance. Additionally, it’s important to make a personal connection with the customer—this is where having a good “About Us” page, an explanation of your company’s philosophy or approach, and landing pages become important. After all, a customer might assume that a company who does their website halfway does the job halfway.

The first rule of writing for the web is to keep in mind that people tend to scan content. Structure your pages with sections and headers to make the scanning process easy. Use the header settings on your content management system to highlight these sections and use your keywords in your headers. When a search engine robot scans a page, your headers are one way to signify that a particular term is more important than others.

Ask yourself if your site has a clear Call to Action, or CTA, an invitational, non-intimidating reason for prospects to get in touch with you. The key metric to be thinking about on your site is how many visitors to your site (traffic) convert to a call or signup. In solar, many companies now offer a Free Solar Audit and with satellite mapping technology this can be done at the desktop. To a homeowner curious about their solar potential, that’s compelling.

Great Content. The first step towards winning the battle for search traffic is to make sure your site is populated with content that matches those searches. Without a great page on “solar photovoltaics” you are unlikely to rank highly in search for that term. So it is critical to begin with a keyword strategy.

Thanks to Google, data about which terms get more search is open, at your fingertips and costs nothing. Good web strategy begins with a clear understanding of the keyword landscape, and targeted content aimed at the search terms most relevant to your particular business strategy. Depending on your niche within the solar energy market you’ll want to identify which keywords drive the highest volume of search traffic for your services, and focus on those.

Often, the data is surprising and not always intuitive. Check out the global search volume comparison between “solar pv” and “solar photovoltaics”. As you can see, “solar pv” is a much more searched-for term than “solar photovoltaics,” so as a general rule it would be a good idea to use “solar pv” in your on-page content more frequently than “solar photovoltaics.” Do a little research with the tools mentioned above to see how these terms compare with others. Because the concepts of the solar industry are not well understood by most homeowners, there is a mix of scientific and shorthand terms to consider. The term “solar photovoltaics” is the technical term but is outpaced in search by the phrase “solar pv” by a factor of almost 17. “Residential solar” might be the industry jargon but people are using “home solar” in their searches at a factor of 4 to 1. And you may think of yourself as a “solar installer” but if you use that term instead of “solar installation” you’d be missing out on almost double the search volume.

Resist the temptation to “stuff ” your pages with too many keywords. If you’re overusing a keyword to the point of a page being awkward to read, you’re probably guilty of stuffing.

While it is important to have a clear keyword focus, it’s equally critical that you have a clear strategy around the geographic service area you want to win. Whether by the user or the search engine, the search is likely to be “localized” to “solar pv, los angeles.” The challenge is that few of us concentrate our business in just one city or town––we have service areas––so we need to win in multiple places. There isn’t much to be done about the physical location of your company. That address is the primary one Google will use to “locate” you. List your address clearly on your Contact Us page and in your footer.

Driving Lead Traffic

While organic traffic—that which comes through winning search—is great, it is not going to fill your pipeline. It is very important that your marketing effort include active lead generation tactics. As the world of marketing continues to change at a stunning pace, your program needs to be diverse, flexible and highly measurable. Historically, contractors could rely on a couple of primary approaches—say a Yellow Pages program and some direct mail—to drive most leads. Today, unless you deploy door-to-door canvassers like SolarDirect, it’s very difficult to rely one particular approach to generate most of your leads.

Additionally, your website plays a crucial role. Even if a prospective customer chooses to get in touch with you by phone, there’s a very strong likelihood that they decided to make that call after thoroughly checking you out on your website.

Continue reading →

Posted in Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

How to Position Electrical Distributors for Solar Growth

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Chris Williams

The following is a guest post from our Solar instructor Fred Paris. Fred teaches our NABCEP Entry Level Solar Training. This is an excerpt from a talk Fred gave to an NAED national conference. If you’re a electrical contractor, or electrical distributor looking to optimize your solar website to generate more leads, check out our Website Optimization for Solar companies course.

I’ve underlined a few critical points and added some color to Fred comments.

Enter Fred Paris -

Have we seen the current marketing conditions before?

Occasionally, a new market opens and those in the best position to capitalize on the opportunity just look on as others carve out market share.  In the 80’s, the telephone companies watched as MCI, Sprint and others started carving up the long distance (LD) market.  Those same telephone companies are in the LD market today, but share the market with many LD carriers.  Licensed electrical contractors watched as low voltage contractors not only captured computer and telephone wiring, but also worked for and got new low voltage licenses approved.  With this legislation, they locked themselves to market share that electricians might have today.  IBM ignored the PC business until Apple and others proved the market.  IBM was focused on mainframes or making to PC mainframe comparisons.  Apple was at 50,000 feet, working an unfolding new market.  Yes, IBM is in the PC market today, but they will be sharing the pie with Apple and many others forever.  How long did it take the phone companies to offer television?  Yes, there were regulatory hurdles but it the beginning they did even think of it as their business.  They clearly did not have the high view.

Today, electrical distributors contemplate the ‘green’ market and ask questions such as: ‘how much inventory will we need to carry?  What happens if we stock solar panels and there is a jump in technology?  These are clearly tactical questions.  Good questions if we were just adding another device on the line card; instead, we need to look at this ‘green’ opportunity from a higher altitude, see how things are moving and then work a strategy, stake a claim, and get a big share of this emerging market.

The biggest opportunity for electrical distributors and contractors in more than 30 years is here – and it is Solar PV.  So when I ask electrical distributors and contractors about planning, I find many are waiting for some kind of sign – perhaps some cosmic message – before they jump into the market.  In the meantime, the market channels for Solar PV are solidifying around them with a completely new family of “solar-only” distributors.

Why do we see solar firms from far off-states moving freely about the country working the regions with the best SREC programs (Chris’s Note: take our free SREC training, if you need to read up on SRECs) while our local contractors have little or no response?  What can local contractors and distributors do to at least play in this market, if not lock up their regional market?

Electrical Distributors vs Pure Play Solar Distributors

Lets look at the new guys.  Rather then depending on 14 brick-and-mortar branches, these new entities position as web-based supply for a narrow market segment, e.g., solar PV.  They invest in constant training (every-day) and have deep in-house technical support and professional staff.  The support staff gets involved in the nitty-gritty of a project with a contractor, helping the contractor close the deal, gain financing, and plan the construction process.  Since solar contractors are learning as fast as they can, they depend on this support.  When we think of on-line supply firms rational thinking says lower price.  Not always the case in a support intensive specialty.

(Chris’s Note: Examples of “new guys” are: Alt E, Solar Distributors, Civic Solar)

As the solar PV business expands from an early-adopter to early-majority market, distributors have an opportunity to become significant regional suppliers of complete solar PV systems.

Continue reading →

Posted in Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

How Small Solar Companies Can “Out-market” Large Solar Installers with Deep Pockets with @SolarFred

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Chris Williams

We need to make sure that small solar companies can compete, be profitable, and grow in the solar industry. This means effectively marketing and selling against large solar installers that have huge budgets. If you’re currently creating a solar sales strategy and business plan, I’d suggest reading Keith Cronin’s list of solar sales best practices. If you’re a electrical contractor, or electrical distributor looking to optimize your solar website to generate more leads, check out our Website Optimization for Solar companies course.

Most people in the solar industry know Tor Valenza, known as SolarFred in the twitterverse. He runs UnThinkSolar.

I reached out to Tor to get his perspective on a number of marketing challenges that HeatSpring solar students, alumni, and readers are asking about. I’ve found his answers to be extremely useful, blunt, and honest. His perspective will be able to answer help your business.

Tor has a great perspective because he has worked extensively with both large companies (SolarCity) AND small companies (AEE Solar, SolarPowerRocks, 1BOG). Thus, his perspective on what small companies must do better is very useful because he knows what large companies do really well. If you want to read more of Tor’s perspective, you can view more of his articles on Renewable Energy World. If you have a question for Tor directly, we’ll be having a live Q+A on twitter on Friday at 12pm EST, we’ll be using the hashtag “solarQ+A”. I’ll be on @heatspring.

Here’s the interview:

What do the big solar companies (revenue >10million) do really well?

In terms of marketing, the big solar companies in the residential space know how to throw a lot of money at the internet and cast a wide net toward anyone who’s ever put “solar” into a Google search. That may include real solar prospects, or people who put in the word for “solar system, ” meaning the planets. There’s no real mystery to this type of shot-gun marketing beyond the visual banner image and the call to action within the banner. Google and other ad networks allow you to target a particular zip code, income, gender, an key search words, so those choices also require expertise, but nothing creative.

The other thing that the big companies have are no-money-down solar leasing/PPA materials. That’s very attractive to people today, given fears about depleting savings, tight credit, and underwater mortgages. With good graphics, basic finance information, and an online quoting system, the big companies have a website that is able to entice the visitors garnered from paid search engine marketing to inputting their contact info and get an official quote.

Finally, the big players are also fairly good at referrals. Once again, they do well because they have the money to offer $500-$1000 for every sold system that is referred by anyone who signs up. While $500-$1000 may appear to be a lot, that’s less than their customer acquisition costs using their shotgun approach to internet marketing. If their acquisition costs per customer were less, they wouldn’t be offering that much as a referral commission. If the referral fee is more than their customer acquisition costs… then someone in accounting is in trouble.

What are examples of small solar companies that are marketing as well as the big guys?

My poster child for a small solar company that takes advantage of a small marketing budget is a company that I know in the L.A. area.  They have videos, but they also have a very active blog, Facebook, and Twitter presence. The blog is filled with useful information about solar technology and incentives in the greater Los Angeles area where he serves. As a result, I’m told he receives a lot of customer referrals and brand loyalty. This type of marketing is less expensive than shot-gun paid internet search marketing, but it does take time and effort to build a great reputation that leads to strong referrals.

What tends to be the most valuable sales funnel that everyone tries?

If you have the capital, then clearly search marketing works, as well as having a solar lease or solar PPA financing partner. Big and small companies can use search, but the more you spend, the more effective you’ll be, whether that’s on Facebook or Google paid search.

Not sure you can call it a sales funnel, but having third party financing is increasingly important to converting leads. It’s always attractive to get something (cheaper utility bills via a solar PV system) for nothing (no-money down solar lease/ppa).  Regardless of whether you have marketing capital, customer referrals, whether incentivized or not, are the most valuable sales funnel. Motivate satisfied customers to recommend you to their friends, and the less you’ll need to spend on advertising. Your customers will do it for you and be far more influential than a Facebook or Google ad.

What have you noticed is a very valuable sales funnel/marketing activities that not many people do?

People don’t find enough co-marketing partners. Solar companies should look for partners that they genuinely support, and who also share your solar values. These opportunities don’t have to do anything with the environment or solar industry. For example, you could sponsor a little league team or the entire league. If you’re looking for families with homes, that’s a great way to brand yourself and plant the seed of solar in multiple neighborhoods. On top of buying their uniforms or equipment, or a billboard, offer discounts to any player’s family.

What are the most common mistakes established solar companies (in the business more then 5 years) make?

I think that’s going to be different for every business. Some companies are stronger in some marketing areas than others. That being said, many of these long-time pros don’t think about marketing their experience and “authority.” For any large purchase, people want to trust the brand. Saying that you have X number of installs on your website and other marketing materials shows that you have the experience to do a great, worry-free job. They can also provide info about what makes a good install and a poor one. That can inspire confidence that your system will work and that there will be no leaky roofs or failures. People will pay more for that higher level of experience and quality. You still have to be competitive with the less experienced installers, but if you highlight the difference between a bad install and a good one, many customers will feel that the cheaper ones will cost more in the long run, and go with an experienced installer

Same question above for new companies, been in business less then 5 years.

In general, younger solar companies don’t spend enough time marketing and building their referral networks. If you’re just starting out, then you’ve got to get your name out there, and you’ve got to find innovative ways to stand out and educate customers about solar and your particular service. Also, it’s important to have 1-stop financing partners that offer solar leases and/or solar PPAs or a set loan program, and to market this. For now, it’s an uphill battle to compete without a low-money down financing vehicle. If you’re not qualified to offer these programs because you don’t have enough installs, get qualified as soon as possible.  Beyond that, the more time you spend on building your authority through great customer service, honest testimonials, and photos/videos of successful installs, the more you’ll be trusted and stop the solar curious from seeking another quote.

From a marketing perspective, what is the advantage of being small, what is it hard for big companies to replicate?

The advantage of being small is that you can be as innovative as you want to be without committee interference. That applies to customer service, marketing, and the solar products you use. You don’t have to go through a committee to approve every ad and blog post or Twitter post. You just do it, try something new, and if it works, you repeat. If it doesn’t work, a small company can quickly try something else new without having to generate a report. Big companies have to go through a long approval process and just aren’t nimble when it comes to marketing, procurement, or any communication decision.

If I had an existing established construction business and I wanted to get into solar and grow that section to 1 million in sales within 12 month, what is MUST?

You must create a separate solar website and social networks. Right now, consumers want to go to a solar specialist, not a contracting generalist. The exception is when you’re already known as a green contractor that has a record for energy efficiency projects . The second must is to engage your existing/past customer base for leads and referrals. If you’ve built a house or redone a kitchen for someone, send them all a personal email or general e-newsletter talking about your new solar division, which is (hopefully) being run by a solar expert who has X many years in the field and done X number of installs. On top of that, you must have all the solar FAQs materials ready on your dedicated solar website.  Finally, you must have a referral incentive, as mentioned above, that is paid for every closed sale. Since you don’t yet know what your customer acquisition costs are for solar, mirror your competition’s offering.

What is the most important aspect of solar PR and marketing that companies should focus on and be asking about, but don’t?

To me, it really is all about effective, consistent communication with customers and the media. I think there are a lot of technically talented installers out there who are poor communicators. So, they should learn all they can about how to effectively use social networking tools and how to get attention through the press. However, there’s a difference between knowing how to mechanically use social media and to effectively use it. You have to know what you want to say and you have to say it creatively and with your own unique voice. The more companies focus on effective social media, the more good information will spread about your brand and the solar industry, degrading bad Solydnra publicity and long-time solar myths, such as it’s not affordable or that it needs batteries, which is not the case as long as most states have net metering.

Posted in Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Solar Sales Best Practices, Strategies, Tools: Day 2 of Solar Executive MBA

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Chris Williams

This is the agenda for Day 2 of the Solar MBA course. Click here to read more about and apply to the Solar MBA Course.

“Solar Success Principles is the book I wish I had when I started groSolar. Every entrepreneur should read and follow the ideas and strategies revealed. For new and existing businesses, large and small, the book provides a road map charting the pitfalls and pathways, both monetary and personal, and how to maintain balance while achieving success. Keith has done a service, not just to the solar industry but to everyone, since the tools are applicable to all business.”

Jeff Wolfe—Founder and Chairman, groSolar

As Keith mentioned, you can click here to read more about and apply for the Solar MBA course. You can watch the second video to watch Keith describe the solar business tools you’ll be getting in the course.

I’ve already stated that HeatSpring’s Solar Executive MBA Course is hands down the best course on commercial solar finance and solar sales and business best practices that exists on the market. Yesterday, I published the full agenda for the finance portion of the training taught by Chris Lord. Click here to meet Chris and read the agenda to learn two things. First, learn everything you need to know to finance a commercial solar project. Second, you’ll see exactly what you will learn in the Solar Executive MBA course.

You must apply to take the training. We only want the best of the best, so the instructors and HeatSpring are being very selective about who we let into the training.

Get to know the Solar Sales and Business instructor, Keith Cronin.

  1. Here’s an interview I did with Keith about the lessons he learned from selling his solar company to SunEdison in 2007.
  2. Keith published a book called “Solar Success Principles”, click here to get a free chapter from his book
  3. Keith put together a course to teach Solar Sales and Marketing best practices. It’s typically, $595, but we’re allowing people to enroll for $395 from this page.

Here is what Solar Industry Veterans Have Said About Keith

“We are experiencing explosive growth in the solar industry, and just diving into this capital intensive business is precarious. This book will get you there safely with a simple and effective road map if you need to detour abruptly. Keith is the first person that I know of to describe the best practices for success from the ground up, from budget to sales and operations, in a clear and concise way that will allow you to take your business anywhere, including an exit strategy.”

Jigar Shah—Founder, SunEdison

“Solar Success Principles is an amazing book that pieces together the fundamentals of a business in a practical and easily understood way. I wish I had it 30 years ago. It is a must for anyone starting a business, solar or otherwise. Reading it is like getting an MBA without setting foot in graduate school. It’s not often that a book like Solar Success Principles comes out with a clear road map for small and large businesses to achieve their goals. Read it if you are starting your business, and if your business is already running, have everyone on your management team read it too.”

David Katz—Founder and CTO, AEE Solar

Here’s the full agenda for the Solar MBA class. Notice that the tools you’ll be getting are underlined and bolded

Solar Business and Sales Success

1. Introduction into the Business of Solar

The Opportunity

  • Lucrative multi-million dollar growth market
  • Easy to get into the business
  • Your state incentives and how the economics work
  • How to partner with others- EPC to Sales- use your strengths
  • Opportunities to sell your pipeline to developers
  • Growth strategies for small to medium sized companies
  • Other value added services that your competition is ignoring

Business resources

  • Excel budgeting tool- know how to scale and cover your overhead
  • Sales and Operations Management tool- shared accountability & profitability
  • Operations manuals- turn key systems approach
  • Customer service templates- simple and modifiable to your needs
  • Succession planning- how long do you want to stay in it is up to you
  • Access to the Solar Business Blueprint- Online training course- post seminar

The Challenge

  • What to avoid on day one
  • How to identify quality projects- residential and commercial
  • How gross margin can impact your selling price
  • Allocation of overhead- are you hitting your numbers
  • Eroding margins and how to see them coming
  • Market saturation- what to do in a crowded marketplace
  • Project screening for viable deals- which jobs to take and which to pass on
  • Cash flow analysis and financial partnerships- does it make sense?

The Solution

  • Systemize the operational management of the organization
  • Incentivize the behaviors you want to see- financial to customer service
  • Utilizing analytics and market awareness to gain market positioning
  • Develop a business road map to financial success
  • Sales and operations tied to performance metrics and reward accordingly

 2. Introduction into the Site Evaluation Process

The Opportunity

  • Residential, commercial, industrial and solar farms
  • What makes for a good project to be economically viable in each category?
  • How to find development partners in your area
  • Which opportunities represent the highest yields for the least effort
  • How to fill a pipeline and manage it effectively
  • Strategies to sell pipeline to other partners and presenting the opportunity

Business resources

  • Screen tools to identify opportunities in each area-res; comm; ind & solar farms
  • Marketing strategy to potential candidates for solar in your area
  • Calculate profitability prior to entering into an agreement with an excel tool
  • Compensation strategies for partners bringing you valuable projects
  • Site evaluation matrix tool for assessing risk

The Challenge

  • Chasing projects versus identifying risks upfront
  • Simplify the assessment for your front line people to avoid a resource drain that consumes un-allocatable overhead
  • Find qualified people to work on your team that know what to find and what to avoid
  • Large scale projects look good in conversation, but bad in an excel model- find the gold and leave behind the rest
  • Checklists for screening opportunities to avoid going down the rabbit hole

The Solution

  • Use proven tools to manage time and risk
  • Determine how effective your marketing strategy is and what is missing
  • Screen your projects before spinning up a bunch of engineering time
  • Provide a proven feedback mechanism to know if a project is viable
  • Pipeline support- how to partner and still make money

3. Introduction into the Sales Success

The Opportunity

  • Meteoric growth can be achieved by a highly polished sales team
  • Partnership prospects deliver scalable sales
  • Solar sales is easily teachable to non-sales people
  • Find seasoned sales people in these industries
  • Benefits overview for residential and commercial sales that your customers need to know
  • Marketing strategies and tactics to build your customer base

Business resources

  • Solar excel tools to get you up and running swiftly
  • Solar sales tool- create a professional proposal in 10 minutes with some basic data entry into excel
  • Compensation strategies for alignment
  • Sales matrix tool for assessing risk
  • Compensation options- cost per watt; percentage of sale; gross margin contribution revealed

The Challenge

  • Balancing any sale versus a profitable sale
  • Getting proposals out quickly to prospective customers- they wait, they go elsewhere
  • Lead generation- how to get leads affordably
  • Incentivizing your sales team- or they go where it is more lucrative
  • Checklists for screening opportunities to avoid going down the rabbit hole

The Solution

  • Manage your sales team using objective measurements
  • Give them the sales tools they need to sell today
  • Foster operations and sales alignment for profits
  • Create an incentive program that is scalable and fosters a company wide goal
Posted in Financing, Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Making More Money” in the Solar Industry. A Free Chapter from Solar Success Principles by Keith Cronin

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Chris Williams

You may remember Keith, I did an interview with him about a year ago about “Lessons Learned From Selling A Solar Business to SunEdison”. Keith is also teaching an online solar sales training, that’s free for the next 2 months. Last year, Keith published a book called Solar Success Principles and I want to give you a free chapter. I asked Keith the number one question he always gets from other business owners, he replied, “that’s easy, how to make more money”. So, download Chapter 10, “Making More Money”, below.

Since selling his company, Keith has focused on teaching, writing and consulting with other solar companies that are looking to grow rapidly. Why? He know’s exactly what a company needs to do to profitably scale a residential business and/or break into the commercial business, because he’s done it before.

Here are what some of Keith’s students have said about him.

Solar Executive MBA Course

Keith is one of the instructors for HeatSpring’s Solar Executive MBA Course. If you’re interested in scaling a profitably solar company, getting into commercial sales, and getting all the financail models, contracts you need to finance a project (for far less than the $50k a lawyer would charge) and templates for pitching investors, apply to the course here. 

Here’s what Jigar Shah, the founder of SunEdison has to say about Keith’s advice.

“We are experiencing explosive growth in the solar industry, and just diving into this capital intensive business is precarious. This book will get you there safely with a simple and effective road map if you need to detour abruptly. Keith is the first person that I know of to describe the best practices for success from the ground up, from budget to sales and operations, in a clear and concise way that will allow you to take your business anywhere, including an exit strategy.” Jigar Shah—Founder, SunEdison

Keith has recently published a book, Solar Success Principles (not an affiliate link). You can download a free chapter and see the full content of the book below.

Download "Making More Money" A Free Chapter from Solar Success Principles

Tell us a little more about you and your company and read away.
    Roughly, what were you solar PV sales last year?

If you’re interested in buying the book, but want to know more about what is contain, here are all the chapter.

  • Introduction. 8

  • Chapter One 10

  • Solar Today: Trends and Patterns 10
  • What Has Really Changed in the Solar Industry?. 11
  • We Need to Talk About the Bad News as Well 11
  • Who Wins and Who Loses in This New World?. 13
  • So Why Is This?. 13
  • How Did I Figure All of This Out?. 14

  • Chapter Two. 16

  • How I Did It 16

  • Chapter Three 19

  • The Art and Science of Budgeting. 19

  • Chapter Four 21

  • How Many Hours Can You Sell 21

  • Chapter Five 24

  • Example Budget 24
Posted in Financing, Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Performance Based Contracting is the Future of the Residential Geothermal Business. Prove Me Wrong

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Chris Williams
(Screen shot of the Ground Energy Support Geothermal Monitoring dashboard)

Real time geothermal heat pump monitoring is about to the change the geothermal industry and in 5 years it will become standard practice in competitive markets like New England and the mid-Atlantic. The best 50% of firms will double their businesses and the bottom 50% of firms will stop installing geothermal because they won’t be able to compete. This is great news for the industry and I’m on a personal mission to make this happen as fast as possible. If your business is in the top 50% of geothermal firms and you design and install high quality geothermal systems, you should quickly get familiar with real time monitoring because it will allow you to increase your profit on jobs and increase your sales. Two months ago, I went to an LI Geo meeting, pitched one of the contractors on using real time monitoring with a performance based contract, and he responded, “that’s exactly what I need, I’m not going to lose a $45,000 geothermal job to a competitor for an $800 piece of equipment.” If you’re not in the top 50%, watch out ;)

It will make your business more profitable in a few ways: 1) Increased customer satisfaction. 2) Work into a service agreement so that each sale brings in recurring revenue. 3) Increase sales by a) using other projects to show a potential clients during the sales process and b) offering a performance based contract to win any and all bids from competing geothermal companies that do not feel confident enough the in quality of their design and installation to GUARANTEE its performance.

To get familiar with real time geothermal technology, how it works, the difference between monitoring, measuring and metering, download “The Current State of Geothermal Monitoring”, published by Ground Energy Support and HeatSpring. I’m an advisor to Ground Energy Support.

Here’s what the Geothermal Monitoring Whitepaper will address

  1. The difference between geothermal monitoring, measuring, and metering
  2. Data collection
  3. Calculation of the geoexchange with the ground loop
  4. Modeling with system specifications
  5. Deciding on the best measurement method based on goals, budget and accuracy requirements
  6. Data analysis. How to interpret the data
  7. Most common system performance issues with the geothermal heat pump operation, design and source side issues

Download the Real Time Geothermal Monitoring Whitepaper

Give us a few pieces of information and download the whitepaper that provides an in-depth review of the current state of geothermal monitoring.

There are several trends that will make real time monitoring standard practice within 5 years.

  1. Historical precedence with the solar PV industry.
  2. Public policy is pushing towards performance based incentives.
  3. Monitoring addresses and solves HUGE problems that our industry faces
  4. Monitoring also addresses the top issues that homeowners have when looking to purchase geothermal and AFTER they have purchased a product. Addressing these issues will allow you to 1) increase sales by addressing client concerns and 2) increase referral business by increasing customer satisfaction.
  5. Monitoring can be added to your existing O+M contracts
  6. Use monitoring to structure a performance based contract.

Now, I’ll discuss each of these items in more depth.

1. Historical precedence in the solar PV industry

In the early 2000s very few solar PV projects in California had monitoring on them. Why? The technology was too expensive, and it was not required because the majority of state incentives were based on cash rebates. Forward that to today, well over 95% of residential projects in California are monitored. Why? First, the incentives are based on the performance of the system, so they must be monitored. Second, financers are guaranteeing production amounts which must be proven with monitoring. This will be happening in the geothermal industry.

2. Public policy is pushing towards performance based incentives

Even if you don’t want to install real time monitoring, you may not have a choice, as more and more states are looking at production based incentives for renewable thermal technologies.

New Hampshire is leading the country in this effort and is currently working on establishing the rules and guidelines for implementing a law in 2013 that was passed in early 2012. You can read more about the New Hampshire program here.

  1. State by State Comparison of Geothermal Heat Pump Legislation
  2. US States Heating up to Renewable Thermal Heating and Cooling

Maryland has passed some legislation, and Massachusetts is looking to address renewable thermal technologies as well as Vermont. For Massachusetts and Vermont, it’s currently unclear how they will incent renewable thermal technologies, however they incentivize solar pv and wind on a production level, so my guess is that they’re pushing this way with renewable thermal technologies as well.

Continue reading →

Posted in Featured Designs, Products, and Suppliers, Geothermal and Solar Design and Installation Tips, Geothermal Heat Pumps, Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The OPEN PV Project: See Real Time Solar PV Installations from 2000 to 2012 and More Cool Info

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Chris Williams

I just stumbled upon The Open PV Project that was compiled by NREL.

It provides some cool vanity metrics, like a PV map of solar PV installations from 2000 to 2012, and so some very useful state by state market data that can be used for market research. You can also submit your projects to the database, which I would encourage you to do.

 

The Project Has a number of cool functions.

1. “The Market Mapper” Get nationwide and state by state information on the number of installations and costs per year, the number of installations based on system size. Very useful for market research and it’s all displayed in graphs.

2. “Installations Over Time”

This maps shows the number of installations in the entire US from 2000 to 2012. The map is fun to watch and shows the impact that state policy has on the adoption of solar.

3. “Project Contributors” The Open PV Project is based on submissions from contractors and other agencies to submit their projects. The project contributors sections allows you to see the companies that are submitting data and also for your company to submit projects.

4. State Rankings. The state ranking table is an simple and interactive table that displays state ranking based on installed capacity and installed cost.

5. Utility Scale PV. The last tab just deals with utility scale projects in the US.

 

 

 

 

Posted in Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

HeatSpring Launches “Ask An Expert” Services

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Chris Williams

Today’s we’re launching a quick and simple but important addition to our extensive library of free articles, white-papers, tools and free courses, and it’s called HeatSpring’s Ask An Expert service. The Ask an Expert service is for both clean energy professionals and property owners that need help with a very specific situations related to clean energy.

Our industry certification and continuing education trainings have always provided the students of each course with direct contact with our instructors through forums, our message boards, and direct face to face contact. But what happens after the class is finished? What happens if you run into a specific problem while doing a site visit? If you have a question when writing a proposal, creating a design or during commissioning of a project? What happens if you’re brought into a project that is having trouble and your task is to determine what is wrong? We think our Ask An Expert portal will help you.

There is value in simplicity, speed, and curation. There’s a lot of information on the internet but a lot of the information does not fit YOUR SPECIFIC SITUATION. Many times it’s hard to find an answer for a complex problem and we want to use our community of readers, students, instructors, and partners to help each other all the time.

Our goal at HeatSpring is to provide renewable energy professionals and property owners with all the information you need to make money or save money using clean energy. We realize that sometimes professionals and property owners have specific questions that cannot be addressed in HeatSpring Magazine, in a industry certification training, or in a free course. For this reason, we created Heatspring’s Ask An Expert service. The service is both for professionals and property owners.

CLICK HERE if you are an INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL – engineers, tradesman, salesperson, architect, executive – looking to ask a question.

  • The professional section is split up in technology sections, within each section, feel free to ask any question about marketing, sales, design, installation, project management, policy, and finance.
  • We’ll work to get you an answer within 48 hours.

CLICK HERE if you are a PROPERTY OWNER that is looking to ask a question related to the design, installation, policy, or financial implications of investing in clean energy.

  • The property owner section allows you to send us a specific question and we’ll respond to it within 48 hours. We didn’t feel it would make sense to make this information public because it can involve sharing private information about your home including addresses. etc.
Posted in Geothermal and Solar Design and Installation Tips, Geothermal Heat Pumps, Q+A, Solar and Geothermal Sales and Marketing Tips, Solar Photovoltaics, Solar Thermal | Leave a comment