What Is a Solar Service Agreement (SSA)?

Not every offtake structure looks the same once you leave the standard PPA framework, and state rules can change how a project is structured. We asked Keith Cronin, instructor of Inside the Solar Executive MBA Data Room, to explain what a solar service agreement (SSA) is, how it evolved, and why it looks different depending on where a project sits.

Here’s what he had to say.

Keith walks through the full SSA template, along with how it compares to lease agreements and feed-in tariff structures, inside Inside the Solar Executive MBA Data Room. The course also includes the EPC agreement, DSA, MIPA, O&M agreement, and a financial model, so you can see how each contract fits into a real deal from origination to close.

Enroll your team in the course today!

Transcript below.

Could you explain a little more about the solar service agreement, or SSA?

The solar service agreement has evolved over time. I think of it as having grown out of the idea of a power purchase agreement, alongside the ESA, the energy service agreement, which I’ve talked about in other videos in the context of using energy as a service, like battery-only deals.

The SSA has been around for a while and is generally built off the SEIA model, then adapted state by state. Every state has different rules and requirements, so no two SSAs look quite the same. At its core, though, the SSA defines the relationship between the host and the purchaser of the project. When I say purchaser, that’s the buyer and seller of the electrons, meaning the investor or asset owner. It sets out what they’ll pay for electricity over the term, which could run 20 or 25 years with multiple five-year extensions. Some SSAs include production guarantees, and they address what happens when a system needs to come down for maintenance. All of these clauses exist to create a strong relationship between the host and the asset owner, so expectations are clear the whole way through. Once an EPC or developer reads through the agreement, most of the clauses make sense in the context of that host relationship.

Markets like Rhode Island work differently. You’re not signing an SSA with a Rhode Island customer, you’re signing a lease agreement instead. That lease might guarantee a monthly check, or in some deals I’ve seen, a percentage of revenue, which ends up functioning similarly to an SSA in practice. Think about a strip mall owner with ten storefronts and one sitting empty. A feed-in tariff program lets them treat their roof as a dedicated twenty-year customer, matching the term of the agreement with the utility in a state like Rhode Island. That’s a lease negotiation, not an SSA.

Every state runs its own version of this, and community solar changes the picture again. The SSA is the structure you’ll see in almost every market that doesn’t have a feed-in tariff or a community solar program.