It really should be no surprise to you that people are just not buying solar right now and the industry has come to a somewhat “slow” point due to Covid-19. Naturally this means that installers are losing jobs and smaller solar companies are having to adapt to keep afloat without having to go to the small business association for a disaster loan…
We have seen on twitter that the SBA is pretty much the equivalent of the DMV given it was still down hours after we finished writing this piece.
As of now – you likely have either seen or been on one of those Zoom online networking events because everything has gone entirely digital. Not to mention universities have basically become a badly run & expensive form of coursera due to this.
So what does it mean for the solar industry as a whole to go digital?
Selling solar remotely is one of the big topics of discussion – how can solar installers rack up contracts without having to actually visit a site? With the plethora of software out there already it should be no surprise that trying to get business remains to be a focus for the industry. But what steps are going to be needed to actually keep growth top tier coming out of this mess?
Here are our editors thoughts as to how solar companies & growth will continue coming out of this:
- Leverage digital analytics & remote energy analysis software to fine tune solar designs :: companies like TouchLight for reducing hardware costs or Ento for pre install energy analysis || solar companies can use these solutions to close contracts and start servicing people
- All signed contracts with a start date in “september” will continue to get financed & factored today through existing financier partnerships installers have in place. We suspect companies like Mosaic or Wunder Capital will still issue financing in light of the current pandemic as them putting capital down still qualifies them for the 26% Federal ITC
- The inclusion of more software & remote driven sales strategies will make it easier for homeowners to evaluate solar for their home & in turn create a record breaking Q3 for solar and provide exponential growth to the industry pushing into Q4.
Naturally our hope is solar does grow rapidly coming out of this as that only means we are increasing our climate positive impact as a global, borderless society.
Now if you don’t have solar or are interested in it and have some downtime – why not ask for your local solar guy and get a quote – offers might be interesting to explore given the current status of things.
Stay safe, stay healthy and stay positive – a bright rainbow is coming.