[Interview] How to Provide Solar Financing to Any Non-Profit Solar Project Larger Than 50kW Lee Barken and his team at Collective Sun have figured out the holy grail of commercial solar financing. Collective Sun can provide solar financing to non-profit solar projects from 50kW and up. Currently, they’re offering their product in California but… Continue reading “[Interview] How to Provide Solar Financing to Any Non-Profit Solar Project Larger Than 50kW”
5 Perspectives for Using Solar Subcontractors for Residential PV Installation This is a guest post by Fred Paris. Fred teaches our 6 week Solar Startup Accelerator where students get the tools (budgeting, planning, pricing, project management) and business plan they need to start new solar business or solar division within… Continue reading “5 Perspectives for Using Solar Subcontractors for Residential PV Installation”
[Interview] How Faze1 Used Data to Acquire a 5kW Residential Solar Customer for $0.25/watt This is the story of how Faze1 learned how to acquire a 5kW residential solar customer in Massachusetts for $1,250 or $0.25/watt. This is about 50% lower than the $0.49/watt that is typically referred to for average residential customer acquisition… Continue reading “[Interview] How Faze1 Used Data to Acquire a 5kW Residential Solar Customer for $0.25/watt”
[30 Minute Interview] Why SREC Markets Will Grow in a Post-ITC Solar World + Other Trends in Commercial Solar Finance All eyes are on the reduction or expiration of the 30 percent federal solar tax credit (ITC). While it’s the prime goal of SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association) to maintain the federal ITC, some have argued explicitly that it’s time to… Continue reading “[30 Minute Interview] Why SREC Markets Will Grow in a Post-ITC Solar World + Other Trends in Commercial Solar Finance”
50 Minutes of Video Answering 5 Questions on Finding, Pitching, Managing Solar Tax Equity Investors This event has already happened. Please scroll down to see the recording and read the answers to the questions. This week our focus has turned to a question that everyone wants answered. Investors, investor, investors! Everyone needs more capital for projects,… Continue reading “50 Minutes of Video Answering 5 Questions on Finding, Pitching, Managing Solar Tax Equity Investors”
Advice from a $20MM Solar PV Investor for Commercial Solar Installers = Focus on a Niche, Be Fast, and Standardize your Operations This article is part of a series of tutorials, interviews and definitions around commercial solar financing. If you need to learn more about solar finance, click here to test drive our Solar MBA. In the Solar MBA students will complete financial… Continue reading “Advice from a $20MM Solar PV Investor for Commercial Solar Installers = Focus on a Niche, Be Fast, and Standardize your Operations”
Get Ahead of the Curve in the Solar Industry The solar industry in the U.S. is growing at a breakneck pace. A recent report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association states that, for the first time in well over a decade, the U.S. is expected to… Continue reading “Get Ahead of the Curve in the Solar Industry”
Battery Backup Basics for Solar PV When choosing the right battery, we must consider what we are doing with them, where we will put them, how much we will work on them, and how long we want them to last. Of course, all of these factors will… Continue reading “Battery Backup Basics for Solar PV”
Chris LaForge on Load Analysis for Battery-Based Solar Projects [Video] ISPQ Master trainer and solar legend Christopher LaForge is teaching a class on designing battery based solar PV systems. The capstone project for the class is design a complete battery based solar PV system. This is an intensive six-week training… Continue reading “Chris LaForge on Load Analysis for Battery-Based Solar Projects [Video]”
Two Things You Should Know About the Michigan Solar Industry The Open PV Project ranks Michigan as the 28th best state for solar PV with 7.09 MW of installed capacity. Here are two things you might not know about the Michigan solar industry if you’re not spending a lot of… Continue reading “Two Things You Should Know About the Michigan Solar Industry”
How to Design Homes to be Solar PV Ready Many homeowners might be building a new home or doing renovations and they want solar, but not right now. The following is a guest post from Jamie Leef, an expert builder and solar installer at S+H Construction that will be… Continue reading “How to Design Homes to be Solar PV Ready”
Solar Executive MBA – Learn How to Model, Price, and Find Investors for Your Commercial Solar Projects Whose job is it to understand all of the numbers behind a commercial or utility-scale solar project? “That’s somebody else’s job,” is the response we hear from most people in the solar industry. We built the Solar Executive MBA for… Continue reading “Solar Executive MBA – Learn How to Model, Price, and Find Investors for Your Commercial Solar Projects”
50% Off Solar Training for Massachusetts Based Employees and Companies, up to $3,000 per Employee and $30,000 per Company This article is quick, but awesome! If you’re a Massachusetts company and looking to train employees on solar, you can apply for a workforce training grants and get 50% off, 3 HeatSpring trainings. This is for companies that need to… Continue reading “50% Off Solar Training for Massachusetts Based Employees and Companies, up to $3,000 per Employee and $30,000 per Company”
How We Financed a 13kW Solar Project on a Church in Massachusetts The following is a guest post by Fred Paris, the instructor of our Solar PV Installer Boot Camp Training + NABCEP Entry Level Exam Prep. Fred tells the story of how he worked with members of a church to finance… Continue reading “How We Financed a 13kW Solar Project on a Church in Massachusetts”
“If Banks Only Understood Solar, My Commercial Solar Business Would Grow” We’ve had over 800 people download our commercial solar PV finance model. If you haven’t, you can download the Commercial Solar Model here. When our readers, students and alumni download it, we ask them what the is the #1 obstalce… Continue reading ““If Banks Only Understood Solar, My Commercial Solar Business Would Grow””
Solar PV Web Marketing Practices Needed to Beat SolarCity + the Big Guys 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… Continue reading “Solar PV Web Marketing Practices Needed to Beat SolarCity + the Big Guys”
The Impact of SREC Value Assumptions on Commercial Solar PV Project IRRs Calculating the the un-levered (no debt), internal rate of return (IRR) of a commercial solar PV project is key to selling the project to the property owner, or gain investors on board for financing. If you’re still using the term… Continue reading “The Impact of SREC Value Assumptions on Commercial Solar PV Project IRRs”
How Small Solar Companies Can “Out-market” Large Solar Installers with Deep Pockets with @SolarFred 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… Continue reading “How Small Solar Companies Can “Out-market” Large Solar Installers with Deep Pockets with @SolarFred”
Preview of Powerful Commercial Solar Project Finance Model included in Solar Executive MBA Course If you are involved in selling or financing commercial solar projects and need a robust proven tool to value those projects, this model (which is included in our Solar Executive MBA course) will be useful to you and your business… Continue reading “Preview of Powerful Commercial Solar Project Finance Model included in Solar Executive MBA Course”
“How Do I Get the NABCEP Certification?” Step by Step Process for Getting the NABCEP Solar PV Installer Certification A question we get all the time is “How to do I get the NABCEP Solar PV Installer Certification?”. Instead of answering the question a million times, I wanted to create a definitive guide of all the talking points. Even… Continue reading ““How Do I Get the NABCEP Certification?” Step by Step Process for Getting the NABCEP Solar PV Installer Certification”