Considering solar for your business? Learn the key steps involved in evaluating your property, understanding your energy usage, and determining whether commercial solar is a smart investment for your operation.
Most businesses we talk to have been thinking about solar for a while before they call. The delay is usually not skepticism about solar — it is not knowing what the first step actually is, or worrying that asking will produce a salesperson.
Here is the whole process, so you can see what you are getting into.
Step One: Gather Three Documents
Before anyone can say anything useful about your project, they need to know how your building uses electricity. That takes three things:
- Twelve months of utility bills. A full year captures your seasonal swings — the summer air conditioning load, the winter shortfall in production.
- Your rate schedule. It is printed on the bill. It determines how every kilowatt-hour and every kilowatt of demand is priced.
- Interval data. Your utility records your consumption throughout the day. As the account holder you can request it, and it shows your load hour by hour rather than as a monthly lump.
If you are collecting proposals from several contractors, give each of them the same three documents. Then the differences between proposals reflect design judgment rather than differences in what each one assumed.
Step Two: The Evaluation
A preliminary review of your utility bills, energy usage, and site conditions can often be completed within about one week.
What we are looking for is the shape of your load: how much of your consumption falls in daylight hours, where your demand peaks sit, and how your operating schedule lines up with what an array would produce. That relationship determines system size far more than roof area does.
This step sometimes turns up opportunities that are not solar at all — a service upgrade that was needed anyway, aging equipment worth replacing, a load that could be shifted. We will tell you about those too.
Step Three: Design and Proposal
We produce complete designs in-house. The plans package shows explicit details, including code references, to ease reviewers past obstacles.
A proposal should tell you the system size and what it is based on, how much of the production your building is expected to consume on site, what the equipment is and why it was selected, the full installed cost, and any utility-side work the project requires. If a service upgrade is necessary, you should learn that here — not in month three.
Step Four: Permitting, Installation, Interconnection
Engineering, utility documentation and permit packages are typically prepared within about a month. Review times by the Authority Having Jurisdiction vary considerably — some jurisdictions issue permits within days, others require a month or more depending on workload.
Installation runs from several days to several weeks depending on size and complexity. Our own team does the work; we do not subcontract your job to others.
After inspection, the utility must grant Permission to Operate. Many approvals complete in roughly a month, though utility processing times vary and cannot be guaranteed. Interconnection services with the utility are included in what we do.
One Timing Note Worth Knowing
Projects that did not begin construction by July 4, 2026 must be placed in service — complete, inspected, interconnected, and granted Permission to Operate — by December 31, 2027 to qualify for the federal Investment Tax Credit.
Working backward through the stages above, that puts the practical decision point in spring 2027 for a straightforward project, and earlier if a utility service upgrade is involved. We cover the backward math in detail in our article on the 2027 deadline.
Consult your tax professional regarding your eligibility.
What You Are Not Signing Up For
An initial conversation is a conversation. We handle every inquiry personally — no call centers, no sales teams. If the evaluation shows your building is a poor candidate, or that the timing does not work, we will say so.
Request a free consultation to get started.