Project Title: PACE Solar Accelerator 

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Funding Opportunity: SunShot Technology to Market (Incubator 10)
SunShot Subprogram: Technology to Market
Location: Pleasanton, CA
Amount Awarded: $498,965
Awardee Cost Share: $498,964
Project Investigator: Deep Chakraborty

ENACT is developing PACE Solar Accelerator (PSA), an end-to-end platform for automation of sales, operations, design and financing of projects leveraging Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing. The PSA platform accelerates sales and financing volumes and reduces the risks and costs associated with origination, underwriting and overall administration of PACE-backed solar projects. PSA enables both developers as well as PACE program lenders to access the platform and benefit from increased workflow automation, improved operating margins and more rapid scale-up.

Approach

PSA will enable solar contractors and developers with a dedicated end-to-end workflow that combines sales, finance and operational steps for PACE financing, including but not limited to: property eligibility and customer qualification, technical eligibility, operational process conformity, standardized underwriting as well as streamlined document management. In addition, the platform will enable landlords and tenants to engage on a common economic benefit proposal simultaneously, compare different pricing and sizing scenarios, and contract electronically for an optimized solution. Finally, the platform will automate the lender consent process for PACE deals through an intelligent document management platform.

Innovation

PACE opens up significant new sales and financing opportunities to millions of property owners in the U.S., especially those who lack sufficient credit standing for solar leases, loans and power purchase agreements. The PSA platform will be the first-of-its-kind to unlock finance access for approximately 40-50 percent of the residential market, and 60-70 percent of the commercial real estate market that can now finance solar deals using the PACE option. Using the platform, the PACE developer and/or contractor can offer a PACE financed sale and will know with more certainty, before making any proposal to the property owner, that the property owner can qualify for PACE financing, while ensuring they realize energy savings as a result. This ability greatly improves customer targeting and conversion, while materially reducing the cost through eliminating wasted effort.