The Most Forward-Thinking Contractor award celebrates solar installers devoted to making progress in energy and beyond in hopes of a more sustainable future.
– Chris Kemper, Founder & CEO
Gigawatts of photovoltaic solar are coming online in the United States annually, but the technology is still some years from becoming the standard for domestic energy production. To account for growing pains in solar, contractors are taking extra steps to make the process simpler for customers — contractors like South Carolina’s Palmetto Solar, which developed a digital platform that accounts for every step in solar installation, from sales pitch to permission to operate.
Design and sales software are commonly used by solar installers. What differentiates Palmetto’s platform is its proprietary offerings. The company describes itself as “tech-first,” keeping the solar support for customers, sales and enterprise partners and installers completely digital, with efforts outside day-to-day processes to anticipate an expanding solar market.
One of Palmetto’s developments beyond basic sales and design was software that mapped the solar potential for 84% of the buildings in the United States. Using proprietary energy intelligence data and MIT-licensed algorithms, Palmetto developers were able to model buildings and determine their solar friendliness.
Another digital offering from the contractor is GLIDE (Geospatial Local Intelligence Data Engine), which is a database containing applicable information on regions, utilities, jurisdictions, service territories and supply and distribution centers. GLIDE is available to Palmetto’s residential installer network to assist in the sales process. Then, to make navigating GLIDE simpler, Palmetto developed Atlas, which harnesses that data and presents it to users geographically.
These programs on the Palmetto platform are offered to consumers and installation, sales and enterprise partners. Through its sales platform, design software and network of financing resources, the company is aiming for transparency in project cost and construction timelines and wants to drive down costs for consumers trying to go solar.
I am an unhappy Palmetto customer. They don’t have an in-house accounting department that will accept my money. Let me explain. I want to pay for my bill in 3 installments. The first payment is for basically all the paperwork. The charge was for $4509 which I paid by credit card to “bill.com”. There was no charge for using the credit card. The next installment was for the materials and labor. When I tried to pay with the credit card, they said there will be a charge of over $200. I said that I will pay by check, but they won’t accept the check. It had to be an ACH TRANSFER only. I don’t know anything about bill.com, but I don’t want to trust that they will keep my banking information safe. I am at a standstill.
As a solar sales rep the software we use is truly unique and makes the entire process very smooth!