Community Solar | What Doesn’t Work
How to Avoid Failure in Execution of CS as a Large User of Electricity
I’ve mentioned before how community solar has increasing demand with limited supply.
At Community Solar Authority, we’ve been working on a waitlist-only model for over a year because of the amount of interest we have in our pipeline of projects we subscribe.
We’ve seen our clients make some critical mistakes and end up missing out on the available capacity, and we’ve heard even worse horror stories from organizations that weren’t our clients that lost their chance at savings.
This article dives into the mistakes that I’ve seen across the industry as a whole for anchor tenants, or large consumers of electricity. I’m going to pull back the curtain on all the stuff that doesn’t work in community solar if you’re trying to utilize it for lower electricity costs.
Subscription w/ No Specific Project Attached
One of the silliest things that I’ve seen asset managers and solar developers try to pull off is having a customer sign an actual subscription agreement, without a real project attached.
This is something that an end-user typically wouldn’t be on the lookout for, as they read the subscription and see that it’s a legitimate savings model. In community solar, the anchor client is what makes the solar asset financeable.
The problem in working with smaller players, however, is that many of their projects simply aren’t real, and won’t ever be real. We call them bragawatts.
For one reason or another, their solar projects won’t ever be built, and we’ve seen clients who have tried to execute community solar stuck on a waitlist for YEARS.
Solutions:
- utilize our community solar marketplace & we’ll take care of all of this for you at no additional cost.
- make sure your subscription agreement has a real project attached to it from the developer. A project name, location, a COD date, etc.
Stalling to Execute an Agreement
A silly mistake that organizations make is thinking they have all the time in the world to execute their community solar agreement.
With the limited supply, and a need to execute with precision to continue progress, solar developers usually do not give people more than a week to review & execute their subscription once it’s built.
We’ve closed corporations in less than two weeks, and on the corporations that take longer.. even if they’re ideal clients- I’ve seen them pushed out of available projects and moved back a year in the pipeline because of delays.
We hate reaching out to our clients to tell them this because it always comes off as a pressure tactic, but it truly is just the name of the game. If you take too long to sign that agreement, you will certainly lose the opportunity to save, and have to start the sourcing process over again.
Solutions:
- Leverage our process at Community Solar Authority to get all the education you need, have us talk to stakeholders, and walk you through your subscription agreement review to make it a breeze.
Working w/ a Developer Directly
This last point may seem counterintuitive because you typically want to be working with the source of the solar project- right? Wrong.
The reason is, when you’re working with a solar developer directly, they only have access to their specific pipeline of projects.
What if their pipeline isn’t offering the best discount, or the quickest time to savings? What if they aren’t the best asset manager to take care of you longterm? What if they simply aren’t the best option for you?
Solution:
- work with Community Solar Authority to get market insights and access to multiple development pipelines of community solar capacity to ensure a maximized ROI with the program.
Conclusion
There are plenty of opportunities to screw community solar up, and end up without a project to participate in, or worse, an agreement you won’t be happy with longterm.
From our six years in the industry, we’ve seen all the mistakes that large consumers make. In fact, there are more than just the three listed in this post today.
Ultimately, if you’re a large consumer of electricity, you need to make sure the opportunity to lower operating costs is done efficiently & effectively.
To do that- you need an experienced, bolt-on team.
Looking to access community solar savings and have it done right?
Get started at communitysolarauthority.com & book a call.
