In the first quarter of 2019, the U.S installed 2.7 Gw of solar capacity. This amount is enough to power 12.7 million American homes. By 2024, it’s expected that the total installed U.S PV capacity is expected to more than nearly five-fold to 15Gw of PV capacity installed annually. Fast forward to 2050, and solar electricity production could grow 65-fold.
In terms of installation cost, this has dropped by over 70% since 2009. The average PV residential system has dropped from a pre-incentive price of $40,000 in 2010 to approximately $18,000 today. With this increasing demand and government incentives for sustainable energy, as a solar contractor, you’re still faced with the issues of soft costs and labor costs, both of which can seriously affect your bottom line and reduce the number of those going solar.
To address the growing problems of soft costs, the U.S. Department of Energy is working with SEIA and The Solar Foundation to reduce local barriers—that continue to vary across jurisdictions—to going solar. These are the SolSmart Program and The Solar Automated Permit Processing (SolarAPP) campaign. By reducing the red tape, paperwork, and other burdensome requirements, these initiatives work to help reduce your soft costs.
However, you still have to work efficiently so you can improve your business, increase your profit margins, acquire more customers… and save thousands of dollars in the process.
You need to partner with a supplier that can save you money throughout your project cycles, especially when it comes to those hidden costs.
Work Smart to Increase Customer Satisfaction
To meet the greater demand in solar, you have to work smarter to increase customer satisfaction.
You already know how hard it is to acquire customers. In many cases, it can take up to a year from first customer contact from knocking on doors to wrapping up the project. Once you have secured a customer, there’s significant time that lapses from the permitting process to plug-in. Often times, potential customers are turned off when they learn that the total cost of their project is perhaps more than they expected, once again to all the ancillary costs resulting from obtaining permits to interconnection and more. They need to see that their project is moving seamlessly from start to completion. That spells a satisfied customer.
But on your end, you have to deal with labor costs and trying to offset those other soft costs, but your hardware costs continue to fall. Those non-hardware costs are compromising your company’s profits.
As a result, you need to find a discount solar supplier that can provide you with the insights for your customers and assist you to easily get your products and services for every project.
The discount supplier should offer a means to support you right from project kickoff—and the appearance of those soft costs—to project completion and beyond.
Work with the Right Discount Solar Equipment Supplier
In working with a knowledgeable supplier, you need a go-to company who’s got your back throughout the installation process. When there’s a continuous battle with high project costs elsewhere, you should look for a supplier that furnishes high quality hardware from well-known, industry-leading manufacturers. Their equipment must also be made according to all required certifications and be deeply discounted so you can save money and get ahead in your company.
Save Time and Thousands from Hidden Costs
A solar discount wholesale provider who is full-service should offer services that help offset time and money from the hidden cost of soft costs. Solerus Energy helps work through simplifying the local jurisdictional permitting process. It supplies you with all of its design and permit services plus an extensive array of every piece of solar equipment you need. Let’s walk through the discount solar products and services Solerus Energy offers.
Design services
When it comes to solar installation services, Solerus Energy offers two free packages: a full design and permit set, and a permit package. Both are free with any residential system up to 25kW for any U.S.-based residential or commercial installation, and include battery back-up and off-grid solar installations for small and large commercial installations.
The free full design and permit set includes everything for residential systems from 10kW-25kW or $0.01-$0.05/W, depending on the system size. It also has everything for solar permitting in the local area:
- The cover page
- Site plan
- Array layout and attachment details
- Single line diagram
They can also equip you with a full system layout and shading analysis. This is free with a full system order of $250 without a component order.
Their technical staff is NABCEP-certified, so your drawings are of the best quality. Design and drawing services help with permitting, construction, and commissioning systems from 2kW to 500kW. They also offer support for larger systems, but this must be pre-determined. In addition, Solerus Energy provides a custom geotechnical and structural analysis that’s supplied by third-party engineers local to your project site.
Their permit package is free and includes:
- Single line diagram
- System mechanical layout
- Installation plan
- Product dataset
You can also receive a single line diagram and shading analysis only. When you receive your system design documents, you’ll can easily pull a permit and receive a BOM for your order.
In addition, Solerus Energy can provide structural and electrical PE stamps for all 50 states, reducing your costs of obtaining stamps.
Equipment
Solerus Energy carries only high-quality hardware from established, well-known manufacturers that are made per all industry certifications. Their deeply discounted discount solar hardware features:
- Solar panels from an extensive collection of manufacturers
- Inverters, accessories, monitoring equipment, and optimizers
- Racking systems for regular rail-based roof mounts to tilt mounts of varying degrees to equipment for typical ground mounts. Clips, rails, splice bars, clamps, end caps, stopper sleeves, connectors, fasteners and flashing kits are all available.
- Balance of system components
- Off-grid and backup systems that include battery inverters, batteries, and other kits and pieces
Support services
Whenever you need assistance on any aspect of your solar project, Solerus Energy is there to help. Their staff will travel to your site, inspect the system, and produce a complete commissioning report for your customer or financial institution.
You’re also covered right from the beginning of your projects. Support doesn’t stop at the beginning and middle of the project, but at the end as well. You’re totally covered.
Get Ahead with a Full-Service Discount Solar Partner
With the number of solar installations going up and hardware prices going down, the last thing the contractor needs is to lose jobs because of hidden costs from permitting and other soft costs. In partnering with Solerus Energy, you can take advantage of their discount solar equipment as well as free services before, during, and after every installation.
If you’re interested in ways to save time and thousands of dollars on your solar projects, sign up for our contractor’s discount and learn more about working with us today!