By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
As community solar continues to grow – and it is one of the fastest-growing segments of the solar industry – it’s becoming increasingly necessary to figure out how to manage subscriber accounts. But the question is this: Where can community solar array owners find the software necessary to do just that?
Well, one developer out of Denver is looking to answer the question.
Pivot Energy today announced it has launched SunCentral, a white-labeled community solar customer management cloud platform. The service was designed to improve the customer experience for community solar subscribers, and optimize the customer management process for project owners, operators, and developers.
“We saw a critical need in the marketplace for a community solar customer management software that is customer focused, offers a variety of flexible solutions, and is priced right,” said Pivot CEO, Rick Hunter. “When we realized that it did not exist, we built it. As project developers ourselves, we understand the cost model of the community solar businesses, and are able to offer our platform at a cost that our clients can afford, while also bridging the gap between highly technical and customer friendly platforms.”
SunCentral provides project owners, operators, and utilities a unique platform to manage community solar subscriptions, while also allowing subscribers to easily access information. Some of the features include seamless bill payments, energy production monitoring, access to contracts, photos of solar projects, downloadable financial reports, ability to view capacity and availability in multiple projects, data sharing directly with utilities, and more. Pivot will sell the platform to other owner/operators as either a stand-alone cloud application, or an application combined with fully-staffed customer management services.
“We are seeing the community solar market maturing and companies becoming more sophisticated very quickly,” noted Hunter. “Our software provides flexibility that helps our customers simplify every step of the process – whether they have several offtakers or hundreds, it connects them transparently to each project.”
Community solar is the fastest growing segment of the solar industry, with recent research indicating that the community solar market will add as much as 3 GW nationally in the next few years, up from 1.2 GW currently. For instance, in Colorado, a single MW can power up to 164 homes, with 3 GW powering up to 500,000 homes.
With a soft launch having occurred in September, SunCentral is already serving operators and customers in Colorado, with expansion to other markets in progress. The platform is expected to gain significant market share in 2019.