For the second consecutive year, Pick My Solar has been chosen as a finalist in the SunShot Catalyst competition. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative, the SunShot Catalyst program is designed to drive innovation in the solar industry and help bring the best new ideas to the market. Throughout each stage of the competition, participants are eligible to win prizes to develop and execute their ideas.
Pick My Solar is developing its SolarBook service to bring education and transparency to the solar industry, while reducing soft costs for solar installers. SolarBook will be an online resource with videos and tutorials, which explain every aspect of residential solar for homeowners looking to make a fully informed solar decision. Currently, solar technology’s broad adoption has met some resistance due to a general lack of knowledge about the technology and the process. SolarBook will illuminate each step of the solar process from first learning what it is and how it works, to choosing an installer and financing options, to monitoring a system and properly filing for tax credits and rebates. Quick and to the point, visual learning will replace what now takes hours of research and reading.
In addition, Pick My Solar has identified deceptive marketing practices prevalent in the industry which are undermining homeowners’ confidence in making the solar choice. SolarBook will provide homeowners with the information needed for them to analyze their solar situation and help them confidently ask the right questions of solar companies.
SolarBook will also have a premium version called Solar Academy available for solar industry professionals. Like SolarBook, it will also contain multimedia materials; but these will be designed to provide training for solar salespeople, installers and solar project managers ranging from basic information for beginners to the latest product data and installation techniques. The goal is to create industry standards that will bring much needed uniformity across the solar sales and installation community. This, in turn, will serve to help push down the industry’s soft costs which have been stubbornly resistant.
About Pick My Solar: Pick My Solar is an online solar purchasing marketplace, providing homeowners with expert advice and high quality custom bids from solar installers. The overarching mission of Pick My Solar is to simplify the solar purchase process, drive down costs and provide the consumer advocacy necessary for solar to achieve broad market success. For more information, please visit: pickmysolar.com.
About the SunShot Initiative: The U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort that aggressively drives innovation to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources before the end of the decade. Through SunShot, the Energy Department supports efforts by private companies, universities, and national laboratories to drive down the cost of solar electricity to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour. Learn more at energy.gov/sunshot.
