The Community Solar Distribution Problem, & The Infrastructure That Solved It

How High-Profile Energy Firms Partner w/ Community Solar Authority to Help Clients Subscribe to Energy Savings

Image by Remixysm from Pixabay

Energy consultants see community solar as a gateway to help their clients, build their practice, and generate additional revenue.

The problem was that building an internal community solar team, from scratch, took a massive effort- ultimately too much to build in-house.

Over the last 8 years, and $50M+ in future energy savings unlocked for clients, we built the infrastructure that connects their clients to tangible solar assets for energy savings.

My name is Dakota & I co-founded Community Solar Authority. The most significant community solar developers & financiers hire our firm to solve a single problem: distribution for large energy users.

They want long-term, stabilized anchor offtake to represent their anchor subscribers within their community solar project pipeline.

This is a problem that everyone has, and it’s ultimately what has allowed us to build a business around access.

Our Community Solar Rollouts solve both ends of the equation:

• We have access to available community solar pipelines across the industry to achieve meaningful scale
• Energy consultants have access to the right subscribers, who are already seeking additional energy savings

Instead of building a practice in-house, we’ve partnered with some of the best firms in the energy space to deliver a turnkey solution that connects their clients to these projects, and they get to look like heroes for doing it.

The Low-Hanging Fruit Partnership

Our partners are aiming to improve their clients’ energy strategy.

For some, it starts with efficiency or energy procurement work.

For others, it’s delivered through the vehicle of energy as a service.

Sometimes, it’s done through engineering, real estate, or construction.

The commonality? They’ve built a level of trust with clients around delivering wins to their energy strategy.

These types of firms all end up partnering with us because community solar solves a question their clients are already asking: “How do we reduce energy costs without a capital project?”

From a scalability perspective, community solar subscriptions are among the lowest-hanging fruit opportunities to support an energy strategy:

• It costs the client $0 to participate
• They don’t have to install any solar
• They access guaranteed savings

This means you look like a hero for helping your clients solve problems they knew they had, but didn’t know how to fix.

The missing link then became our access to actual projects.

Our partners only had one thing to do once we onboarded them: introduce us to clients who would benefit from community solar access.

The Distribution Problem: Solved

The missing link, the infrastructure that connects clients to community solar, is something we’ve spent 8 years perfecting through systems.

Our brand has helped the largest energy users in markets like NY & IL access community solar savings through our strategic partners.

The value is pre-baked into our partnership because the consultants are only responsible for introducing us to their clients, and then the system runs itself:

• We meet with their clients to discuss community solar
• Our team delivers education, project sourcing, and implementation
• When we get paid our fee, it gets split with our strategic partners

We pay a revenue share to our partners so they can achieve actual scale, without having to do any of the work needed to have an in-house firm.

This is how we create what we call triple-win synergy:

• The client wins via lower energy costs
• Our partner wins by looking like a hero & generating revenue-share
• We win by filling our projects & expanding access to the program

Community solar works, and we make it scale through this distribution on-ramp we’ve built.

The Proof is In The Wins

We’ve supported Fortunes, municipalities, schools, manufacturers, and large energy users alike to subscribe & save with community solar.

Our entire business model was built on partnering with the best energy firms and showing their customers the on-ramp into energy savings.

Our business grows exponentially year over year, and it’s not because community solar became a better product.

It’s because the energy consultants recommended us to all of their clients as the easiest way to access the program through our partnership.

Community Solar Authority is committed to partnering with the highest-integrity energy businesses in the market to continue to supply community solar access to clients and solve the distribution problem.

You can pair your clients with our infrastructure & create more wins inside your firm effortlessly through our community solar partnership.

Want to partner? Visit communitysolarauthority.com/partner today.

THANKS FOR READING! QUESTIONS? dmalone@communitysolarauthority.com