Energy Needs Assessment

Planning for Today and Tomorrow

We take a look at your current energy consumption and work with you to discover any other energy needs you should plan for while you live in your home. After all, going solar isn't just a status quo! Its both a short term and long term strategic energy plan.

An undersized solar system can be very costly and inconvenient for a homeowner, and often results in expensive settlement "true up" bills owed to the utility company each year. Add in your annual rate hikes from the utility company and these get increasingly expensive over time. When this happens, the fix generally requires adding more solar energy to offset the energy still being used from the grid, thus the need to go solar again...

This too has some drawbacks because there's usually a minimum requirement of 8 solar panels for any kind of solar system expansion or addition, be it the addition of a solar storage battery, or simply a need for a little more solar energy to meet your demands. In general, if your utility company offers Net Energy Metering (NEM) and/or allows you to oversize your solar system, you should always plan to generate more solar energy than you typically consume. Most people agree that it's better to have more of anything you "need" than to not have enough of it to begin with.

Unfortunately, correctly sizing a solar system to meet household energy needs has often been an afterthought for the majority of past solar homeowners and energy consultants alike, resulting in feelings of regret and or distrust of the solar industry. That's why we take the time to understand both your short term and long term energy goals. We understand that solar is one of the most important investments a homeowner will ever make, so we give it the added attention to detail that you deserve.

Solar System Design

Fully Customized. Intelligent. Better.

Based on your home's roof structure, our insights, and your preferences, your panel design is custom created to determine how much energy your home can produce.

Unlike other companies that outsource cheap and speedy solar designs with proposals from overseas "designers", we customize the solar system design to get you the most power possible from the least total number of solar panels.

We use state of the art 3D technology to measure your property, it's roof surfaces and azimuths, and identify the best direction(s) for your solar panels to face. But we don't stop there. We measure your roof slopes, roof shading, trees and other geographic topography to provide you with a fully custom solar system equipment scope and performance assessment, complete with shading report, annual sun path measurements, and manufacturer's equipment specs.

By taking these extra steps, we deliver more efficient solar system designs that free up your home's roof space. If you're planning to start small and add solar equipment in the future as your needs change, you're better off with a custom and intelligent design, that reserves enough solar-usable space on your roof or property to accommodate the minimum system requirements of your local authorities that have utility and permitting jurisdiction.

Permitting & Project Management

It's the Small Stuff that Matters

Once you decide on your favorite solar solution and terms, all you have to is be available by phone and check your email from time to time for occasional project updates. You'll get a smart app with innovating tools for monitoring the progress of your solar project too, and that all starts with a welcome call.

Welcome calls are placed to ensure that everybody is on the same page going forward, and scheduled your site survey visit so that we can ensure your home has a clean bill of health to support a functioning solar system for at least the next 20 to 30 years. If other work is needed you will have the option to review and accept the changes or cancel your solar project if we cannot continue as-is.

You'll be assigned to a dedicated project manager, and after the site survey your project will go into the engineering phase. Here, the system design is optimized and referenced against local building code to ensure household and grid safety. You will be asked to review and approve their completed engineering plans by your dedicated project manager prior to applying for permits.

Upon approval of your engineered design permit applications are submitted with the engineering plans to your local authorities. This is often the longest process of the project management stage as most counties and jurisdictions have not yet adopted online permitting software to streamline the solar permitting process. Permit approval may take anywhere from 1 o 6 weeks depending on the permitting authority.

Upon permit approval, we coordinate with all involved parties and authorities to identify an ideal installation date, and contact you to sync with your calendar. We will continue communicating each phase of the solar project and the timelines for each phase - every step along the way.

Installation Day

When Good Things All Come Together

Installation day is a BIG day. A lot of hard work has come together and is meeting at your doorstep. Installers generally arrive between 7am and 9am. Depending on the size and scope of your solar project the installation timeline is usually 1-2 days. more complex projects may require additional days or crews to arrive.

Typically, an installation crew consists of 3 to 6 men and women eager to get work helping you produce clean energy! Any necessary information regarding power supply to the home during the installation is given to the installers and you to minimize potential downtime, so most crews have a crew boss, an electrician, and a couple PV installers on site.

After the crew boss discusses the installation day agenda with you they'll coordinate with the crew and begin setting up the site. Solar PV racking systems are then mounted, and all seals are made water tight. Next your inverter(s) and solar panels are installed and then all electrical work is finalized. Once fully installed and grounded the solar system is turned on to ensure it is functioning and that the inverter(s) is communicating. The crew will clean up before leaving your property.

When the installation is done your dedicated project manager will work with the authorities to schedule your solar system's final inspection(s), and complete any requests made by the inspector.

Permission to Operate (PTO)

Happy Solar Birthday!

No solar system project is complete without receiving permission to operate (PTO) from your utility company. This is ultimately their blessing that systems meet their requirements for grid safety, and that all information submitted on your interconnection forms are accurate.

Each utility has slightly varying requirements, so some solar systems get PTO sooner than others. Typically PTO is issued in 1 to 4 weeks, as there's no real automated way to PTO solar systems yet. PV systems with batteries and other electrical upgrades require more oversight, and can PTO later in the 1 to 4 weeks timeline.

Your PTO date marks your solar system's in-service date. This is the beginning of a new era - your home powered by solar! From this moment forward you're making a difference in the earth's atmosphere, and controlling your energy cost by becoming your own power supplier.

You have successfully and FINALLY taken your power back - Congratulations!

This is the day you've been waiting for, and what we work for - every day.