Frequently Asked Questions

As of 2022, businesses and nonprofits can take advantage of a base investment tax credit of up to 30% of the eligible investment costs with options for three (3) tax credit adders valued at 10% each.

Tax credits can be sold only to unrelated parties that do not have common ownership with your business. Typically tax credits are sold at $0.85-$0.90 per dollar.

Net metering is the process of selling energy credits back to your local utility. In short, when you install an onsite solar generation, your utility installs a bi-directional meter on the system. If you produce more energy than you need per day, the excess energy will be exported to the grid. Each utility compensates differently. Some offer the “wholesale” energy cost, and some offer the “retail” energy price (the price users pay to the utility for that electricity). Some do not compensate at all. Any compensation is credited to your bill and offsets future electric bills.

From the time we receive a Notice to Proceed (NTP) from the utility, it typically takes six to eight months to submit permits, order equipment, and construct the system.

Property tax assessment varies by county and region. Ultimately, as part of our site investigation, we will work with the local tax assessor to establish a baseline for expected property taxes. If you enroll in our program, ESA will pay any increases to the property tax.

Each insurance company treats solar installations differently. Some will require additional premiums, or in some cases will need to complete an engineering and code review to waive any increases to the property insurance. If you enroll in our program, ESA will pay any increases to the property insurance.

We are agnostic to the environmental attributes, also known as the Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs). If your company has a decarbonization plan, we provide the SRECs to you under our agreement.

When we invest in a project, we spend a significant amount of capital to purchase materials, hire qualified construction personnel, and ensure the system is working properly. Additionally, our costs include insurance for the system, any property taxes, ongoing maintenance, and administrative costs that are recovered over the long term. This allows us to be cost-competitive with your utility provider while having assurance that our costs can be recovered.

Before construction, we may need to access the property for various surveys, which will be coordinated directly with your on-site personnel.

Much like a real estate fund, we operate a fund co-invested by ESA and an institutional infrastructure partner. We hold our assets over the system’s life, while you will benefit from working with our team as a single point of contact. The asset is created inside a special-purpose company that can be sold to a future project owner. This means you always have assurances that the maintenance contracts will follow the special-purpose asset company, not ESA.

No problem. However, ESA will reserve the right to complete a credit check and underwriting of the new owner to verify they are a strong counterparty for the project.

For all ESA projects, one of our first steps during the investigation phase is to conduct due diligence on the existing roof. Generally, we are looking for any pre-existing damage, as well as verifying the roof manufacturer and current warranty holder. During construction, our teams use protective coverings to ensure they don’t puncture the roof membrane. When checking for penetrations into the roof surface, ESA utilizes a certified national roofing partner that ensures your existing roof warranty will not be voided by installing solar

We provide an energy guarantee for all of our subscribers. This ensures that the expected energy output for the year is reached and your expected savings are locked in. You will also have access to an online portal that allows for cloud-based monitoring of your system’s performance.

If your roof is scheduled to be updated during the life of the agreement, we’ll cover the costs to move your panels to another location, allowing your roofing partner to install the new roof system.

For most facilities, we complete a planned outage that allows us to connect the solar array to your existing electrical system. Starting six weeks ahead of connection, we collaborate with your key stakeholders and facility managers to determine the best day and time to connect the system. This communication ensures we minimize downtime and disruptions to your business.

Our customers who invest in projects directly receive a simple cash payback on average between four and nine years, with an equivalent IRR of 9% to 22%.

It is impossible to predict how utility rates will change over time. However, based on historical performance, we see electric utilities increase rates in a single year as high as 40% and as low as -5%. As a result, we use 3.5% over the system’s life as an average to accommodate these large rate swings.

The panels have a 40-year useful life with a 25-year warranty period. Generally, solar panels do not need maintenance to perform, nor do they need to be calibrated to operate correctly. However, we recommend an operations and maintenance (O&M) agreement as an annual preventative measure to ensure all system components are working correctly.

During our investigation phase, we fully analyze local permitting and zoning policy to ensure that the local jurisdiction will approve the proposed solar system. We also work directly with the local utility to ensure that the proposed project will gain approval to connect the utility grid.

• Scope 1 emissions are direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned or controlled by the reporting entity. For example, any emissions emitted by burners, furnaces, or vehicles you own are Scope 1 emissions.

• Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions that result from the generation of purchased electricity at a given facility; in other words, what you get from a utility.  

Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions that occur as a result of activities of the reporting entity, but from sources not owned or controlled by your company. They include all other upstream and downstream emissions that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, such as emissions in the supply chain, transportation of goods, and the use of products and services themselves.

• All equipment we use on our projects is sourced from bankable manufacturers considered “Tier I,” per the Bloomberg classification system. The Bloomberg Tier 1 ranking is a classification system for photovoltaic module manufacturers, created to indicate to banks and investors the most reliable and stable manufacturers offering high-quality products. Generally, these solar products have a 40-year useful life and a 25-year warranty for solar modules.

• Please visit our case studies page to view our client testimonials and past projects.