With most of the US in economic lockdown, fewer people are spending their socially-distanced work-from-home moments thinking about going solar. Consequently, the solar industry is now struggling with 40-60 percent reductions in sales and installations.
In response, OpenSolar is now offering free remote solar design and sales software, while UtilityAPI is enabling users to request and securely download their customer’s utility bill data.
OpenSolar, fresh from its successful launch in Australia, where 20 percent of the homes run on solar energy, has just made its full cloud-based tool available to users in the United States. When users sign up with OpenSolar, UtilityAPI will give them three months of free utility data access through the app.
“Now, while we're in the middle of this, we often ask ourselves how else we can contribute, do something bigger than our individual companies” said Devin Hampton, UtilityAPI Chief Executive Officer. “That’s why we’re working with OpenSolar to speed our entire industry’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. We’re throwing our weight behind collaborative decarbonisation, for the good of our industry, local economies and the planet. We (all) need the solar industry to survive.”
Andrew 'Birchy' Birch, co-founder of OpenSolar, added that with the COVID-19 crisis, the need to be able to sell and design systems remotely is more important than ever and that OpenSolar software is an incredibly powerful toolkit that lets users design systems interactively with their customers, integrating the best data and mapping tools to create beautiful and powerful designs and manage their entire business.
UtilityAPI has noticed that the era of 'kitchen table sales' - face-to-face sales meetings with customers, sitting together at the proverbial kitchen table - has come to an abrupt halt. However, solar installers are now searching for the thing that will replace it.
In order for solar providers to propose projects to their customers, they need to answer a series of common questions. How much will a proposed improvement cost? How much energy will I save? UtilityAPI gives them the data they need in order to answer those questions accurately and quickly. And they can do it all without having to meet with the client in person. Now, when providers sign up with OpenSolar, UtilityAPI will give them free unlimited access to that kind of data for three months via their OpenSolar account.
Ultimately, the recovery of the solar industry will depend on its ability to quickly adapt to the new conditions under which they’ll be able to do business but still be able to delight their clients.
For additional information:
