How our customers boost business value with commercial financing options

Logo Icon

Five EnPowered champions discuss the benefits to their sales pipeline.

Lyle Ciardi is the co-founder and president of Community Solar Advisors (CSA), a group of Florida-based consultants who know the challenges of convincing businesses to adopt solar. His mission is to guide customers through their solar transition seamlessly. What sets CSA apart is its ability to make solar hardware a financial asset rather than a liability – with EnPowered enabling its ability to provide financial solutions that make sense.

“The climate for commercial solar financing is confusing, where people don’t know what’s good or bad,” Ciardi explained. “We’ve looked at the bigger banks that charge exorbitant fees on top of their loans, like dealer fees, and it’s very one-sided. With EnPowered, we’re getting more leads, and our offers are stronger as we can negotiate cash flow-positive monthly payments and condense our customers’ investments into shorter terms.”

EnPowered’s customers, like CSA, are experiencing the benefits of simplified access to funders and tools that streamline complex funding processes. By offering smart financial solutions, these customers are lowering the barriers for businesses to transition to clean energy solutions, thereby strengthening their own market positions.

Choosing to adopt EnPowered

Michael Daciw, co-founder and vice president of EVOLVsolar, knew convincing customers to adopt solar requires more than design and engineering expertise. Businesses need assurance that their investments also make strong financial sense. “We didn’t have a good financing option for customers and looked at EnPowered to give us something unique. We saw opportunities to quote financial solutions with several kinds of suppliers and found shared values that just made sense for our customers. It’s been a good fit ever since.”

Jeff McAloon, co-CEO of The Smart Energy Company, works to bring energy independence to Canadian farmers. Experienced with a cautious and risk-averse industry, Jeff was understandably skeptical of the value EnPowered could bring. “When I first heard the idea of cash flow positivity, it sounded too good to be true. We provide a number of solutions for farmers and they always want to know how we’re reducing their costs. There’s no question that renewable energy will do that, but there’s always the question of how to address upfront capital costs. After talking with EnPowered, I knew it was worth pursuing and now we can confidently offer renewable energy solutions for farmers that are cash flow positive from day one. That’s fantastic!”

Relationships play a big role in Jason Dykstra’s search for trusted partners. As the former president of Redwood Energy Solutions, he was always on the lookout for tools to improve their value to customers. “I got referrals from two different sources for EnPowered, from the U.S. and Canada, which was really enticing. The fact that people in two different countries and markets were talking about you told me there was a good fit for my projects across borders.”

Peter Kranz, CEO of Investor Labs, echoes the importance of adding value for customers. “If a business can use EnPowered to bring financing to a client, it’s an immediate game changer for them. While the overall economics of these projects are quite good, the upfront capital cost is also quite high. Any tool that translates those economics into financing for the upfront capital cost is a win-win for all parties involved.”


From getting your project funded to finding savings once commissioned, contact us to ease the financial impact of your clean energy transition.

Let's talk clean energy solutions.

Integrating financing enables stronger business value

CSA communicates the value of EnPowered’s large funder network to its prospects up front, knowing that answering their cash flow concerns gives them a strong start. “We’re getting more leads because we tell customers that we’re not asking for money, we’re putting you into a better financial position,” explained Ciardi. “We tell them that we can find a solution to deploy the money they’re currently spending on their utility bill into a lower fixed monthly payment and leverage the available incentives to offset the cost of this investment.”

“For example, I’m working with a customer today on a system valued at nearly $400,000. I would never have thought we could do that before EnPowered. Everybody wins in this situation – it’s good for the installer, the financier, the funding brokers, and the business that’s receiving the system.”

Helping customers find the best financing solution

“EnPowered opens up customers to various solutions,” revealed Dykstra. “CapEx solar is a big spend and being able to show different financial models where customers can engage, including the benefits of solar without the upfront capital costs, is really useful. Whether we package it up as a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) or a loan agreement, having different financing options readily available for review makes for great conversations.”

 

Kranz agrees that finding good financing solutions quickly keeps the customer’s focus on you – even under challenging lending conditions. “I couldn’t believe the credit quality of the first business I brought to EnPowered, wondering if they could even make it happen. Will they even talk to me? But they leveraged their funder network to turn it around quickly and got a phenomenal interest rate. Now, they’re my first call for sure on American projects.”

McAloon has found ways to use EnPowered to re-engage old contacts. “You’ve helped us reopen some doors. We revisited a number of projects we had made proposals for over a year ago that didn’t go forward. We went to them with new financing options that led to booking new meetings. Out of those, it was a pretty high success rate.”

Improving the overall funding experience

Beyond the funder network, the EnPowered platform has given these champions much to discuss. With every feature designed to make the funding process easier between contractors, customers, and funders, they’re finding new ways to improve deal closures.

“The ability to pull financing reports quickly has been a really good tool for us,” explained Daciw. There’ll be some diligence on the lender’s side once a deal moves through and we’re able to provide high-level financial reporting to customers in minutes to have those discussions earlier rather than after it’s too late to change anything.”

Nothing else comes close

With the complexities and hurdles of clean energy financing left to EnPowered, contractors can focus on what they do best: closing deals and building new installations.

“It’s pretty incredible how EnPowered can find new structures for these types of solar financing,” Ciardi stated. “Having the chance to weigh incentives against the total project cost and structure payments and terms differently helps us be very customer-centric, which I love. Compared to everything I’ve seen, nothing else comes close to EnPowered.” 

Logo Icon