Clean Power Finance: Financing the Future of Residential Solar

Their goal was to deploy a large amount of capital to ensure they would get a solid return in a number of years,” relates Kirstin. Credit Suisse has played a leading role in residential solar finance, investing hundreds of millions of dollars to date. It also led the first securitization of distributed solar energy assets, a landmark transaction that has paved the way for new sources of financing for residential solar. “Residential solar financing has become an attractive, mainstream asset class,” said Jerry Smith, managing director at Credit Suisse. “CPF’s platform allows us to focus on our core competency— financing—and connects us with a scalable network of qualified specialists who can efficiently deliver solar financing to consumers.”

CPF provides the residential solar industry with CPF Tools, an easy-to-use solar sales quoting and design software platform that helps solar professionals efficiently manage the entire sales process in a single online location. Qualified channel partners can also use CPF Tools to access to a variety of white-label residential finance products. “CPF Tools is a very powerful cloud-based online quoting tool through which a solar professional can access a number of different finance products and also upload all the necessary documents post-sale to complete the transaction,” explains Kirstin.

CPF has a configuration engine that churns out a software release every week and performs routine configurations. The software’s uptime compares favorably with Google’s uptime. The software offers sophisticated capabilities to solar salespeople, such as dynamic pricing changes, updated credit criteria, and automated utility rate calculations.

Residential solar in the U.S. is currently at less than two-percent total market penetration, so Kirstin sees tremendous opportuni ty in the future residential solar market. “We believe we are well-positioned with our product offering. After residential solar, we would also consider geographical expansion and broadening into other renewable energy financing,” concludes Kirstin.