New sections of a multi-part series on residential solar financial analysis, and how it affects the design and sale of residential solar systems, will be published here, on Solar Power World, once a month. Written by Samuel Adeyemo, COO of Aurora Solar, the series aims to demonstrate how economic principles affect solar design, and to provide intuitive and simple definitions for key financial metrics. This series is targeted at solar architects, professionals who both design and sell solar installations and therefore need to have a deep understanding of all aspects of residential design.
One of the most important factors that has driven the growth of solar over the past five years was the development of financing solutions that make solar broadly accessible to the American public. While most customers are not familiar with terms like azimuth or solar access, they do understand terms like “interest-only loan,” or “return on investment.” These customers may have a mortgage, a car loan or credit cards. They may have at some point had college loans, and they may have had to decide between different investment options in their 401k. They worry about the rising cost of living, and consider ways in which to protect against it. In other words, they are financially literate. As a solar architect, shouldn’t you be able to fluently speak their language?
With that premise, the series will kick off with theories from economics that are pertinent to solar design. We will then explore some commonly quoted solar financial metrics, and finally consider ways to present this information in as transparent a manner as possible to the end consumer. I hope that this series will inspire a lot of thought, debate, feedback and more, since I firmly believe our industry needs to have as robust a dialogue about solar financial analysis as we do about solar design.
Sections:
Part One: How economic theory can help maximize profits from solar projects
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