Introduction

The residential solar PV system market has experienced a significant shift, with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) reporting a 15% decrease in installed system costs in 2023 compared to the previous year. This reduction was due to lower prices for solar modules, inverters, and other components, as well as the impact of domestic manufacturing incentives.

Soft costs, however, including customer acquisition and overhead, still represent a whopping 65% of the total project cost and have seen a smaller reduction over time. The ongoing challenge in the solar industry to manage and reduce soft costs can be attributed to a number of factors, including:

• Change orders due to inaccurate designs
• Permitting and inspections
• Cancellations due to inaccurate financial estimates
• Multiple site visits
• Multiple sales meetings

Sitting at the heart of all these issues are inefficiencies created by inaccurate designs and clunky processes. The good news is that solar companies are becoming more efficient overall as they adapt digital solutions, including artificial intelligence. Tasks that used to take minutes or hours now take seconds thanks to automations.

Over the last decade, solar software has had a massive impact on modernizing solar businesses. But, with the flood of solutions, it’s hard to know what features you should look for and which solar software you should choose.

📚 We've assembled the absolute must-have features you should look for when choosing your next solar software. We’ve also included some special features that make top software solutions stand out from the rest.

☀️ Also included in this download is a list of questions that you should ask solar software providers to help you evaluate if their solution is a good fit for your needs.