Solar Power World’s Most Forward-Thinking Contractor brings tech-first approach to customer service and sales

By SD News On Jul 26, 2022

The Most Forward-Thinking Contractor award celebrates solar installers devoted to making progress in energy and beyond in hopes of a more sustainable future.

“Palmetto is excited to share how we’re using a forward-thinking strategy to build a best-in-class consumer experience and a price point that delivers meaningful savings. Our mission is to remove the barriers to growth for all clean energy businesses and prove an operational platform for growth and transparency. In making clean energy more accessible to the consumer, we’re honored to be recognized as a finalist for the 2022 Most Forward-Thinking Company award, as this truly helps validate our model and lifts our team’s morale.”

– Chris Kemper, Founder & CEO

Gigawatts of photovoltaic solar are coming online in the United States annually, but the technology is still some years from becoming the standard for domestic energy production. To account for growing pains in solar, contractors are taking extra steps to make the process simpler for customers — contractors like South Carolina’s Palmetto Solarwhich developed a digital platform that accounts for every step in solar installation, from sales pitch to permission to operate.

Design and sales software are commonly used by solar installers. What differentiates Palmetto’s platform is its proprietary offerings. The company describes itself as “tech-first,” keeping the solar support for customers, sales and enterprise partners and installers completely digital, with efforts outside day-to-day processes to anticipate an expanding solar market.

One of Palmetto’s developments beyond basic sales and design was software that mapped the solar potential for 84% of the buildings in the United States. Using proprietary energy intelligence data and MIT-licensed algorithms, Palmetto developers were able to model buildings and determine their solar friendliness.

Another digital offering from the contractor is GLIDE (Geospatial Local Intelligence Data Engine), which is a database containing applicable information on regions, utilities, jurisdictions, service territories and supply and distribution centers. GLIDE is available to Palmetto’s residential installer network to assist in the sales process. Then, to make navigating GLIDE simpler, Palmetto developed Atlas, which harnesses that data and presents it to users geographically.

These programs on the Palmetto platform are offered to consumers and installation, sales and enterprise partners. Through its sales platform, design software and network of financing resources, the company is aiming for transparency in project cost and construction timelines and wants to drive down costs for consumers trying to go solar.

the Solar Power World Top Solar Contractors awards program is part of our annual Top Solar Contractors list.