Micro-grids
What Drives the Cost of a Commercial Microgrid
Nobody can quote a microgrid from a phone call, and anyone who does is quoting something else. Here are the four things that set the number, in the order they move it.
4 min read
Insights
Commercial Solar Costs, Incentives and Payback
What a project actually costs, which incentives apply, and when the numbers do not work. Written by the people who engineer and build the systems, and reviewed by a licensed Professional Engineer.
Micro-grids
Microgrid, Generator or Battery: What Actually Keeps a Site Running
Three different machines get sold against the same sentence — keep my site running. They fail differently, they cost differently, and only one of them earns anything on the days the grid behaves.
4 min read
Incentives
USDA REAP and Solar Thermal: Which Solar Does Your Operation Need?
Two different technologies get called solar, they solve different problems, and picking the wrong one is an expensive way to find out. What solar thermal is good at, what photovoltaics is good at, and how REAP treats them.
4 min read
Battery Storage
Battery Storage for Businesses: When Does It Pay Off?
A battery only pays for itself if your utility bill is paying for something a battery can change. Here is how to read your own tariff for demand charges, ratchets and time-of-use pricing before anyone quotes you a system.
7 min read
Costs
How Much Does Commercial Solar Cost per kW in Georgia?
An honest breakdown of commercial solar cost per kW in Georgia: why price per watt falls with system size, what the line items actually are, which four variables swing a quote, and how to compare two proposals that look different.
7 min read
Industry
Solar for Poultry Farms: What 4.8 MW of Installations Taught Us
Three installed poultry systems — 210 kW on six breeder houses, 450 kW on fourteen broiler houses, 410 kW on sixteen — and what the differences between them tell you about sizing, cost and payback on your own farm.
6 min read
Industry
Solar Payback Period for Car Dealerships: Real Numbers
Dealerships have an unusually good load profile for solar: the building draws hardest exactly when the sun is up. Here is what that does to payback, where the roof runs out, and why lot lighting and DC fast charging need a different answer.
6 min read
Incentives
Commercial Solar Tax Credit + Section 179: Stacking Incentives
The investment tax credit, Section 179 and bonus depreciation are three different mechanisms, not one. Here is the order they apply in, why the credit shrinks your depreciable basis, and a fully illustrative walkthrough of a $500,000 project.
7 min read
Incentives
How to Apply for a USDA REAP Grant for Solar
What a REAP grant application for solar actually involves, in order: rural eligibility, the energy assessment or audit, the technical report, SAM registration, matching funds, the environmental review, scoring and reimbursement.
7 min read
Find out what solar would do to your power bill
Send us twelve months of utility bills and we will come back with a system size, a cost, the incentives you qualify for and a payback range — at no charge.