Greentech Lead America: To address a broad array of project risks involved in the solar industry, a consortium of 16 companies in the solar energy sector has formed truSolar Working Group.
truSolar Working Group aims to develop uniform standards that will facilitate lower transaction and capital costs, and improve project finance liquidity within the commercial and industrial solar segment.

The founding members of truSolar, led by Distributed Sun and DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions, are among the leaders in solar project asset management, development, financing, manufacturing, insurance and ratings agencies.
Founding member companies include ABB, Assurant, Mosaic, PanelClaw, SMA America, Standard & Poor’s, Booz Allen Hamilton, Rocky Mountain Institute and U.S. National Labs NREL and Sandia.
Solar industry is facing severe financial crisis due to lack of financing from banks. Less than 5 percent of the country’s 6,500 banks and lending institutions are actively involved in financing solar projects due to ongoing concerns about, and misunderstanding, industry risks, the consortium noted.
Despite a robust market for solar installations, lenders struggle to efficiently underwrite loans in this field. In response to this problem, members of the truSolar Working Group are convening to develop uniform standards for solar project screening, rating and underwriting. These standards will reduce and reliably price financing risk, lower the cost of capital and broadly increase the availability of commercial lending for solar projects, helping market participants more accurately forecast asset performance throughout the lifespan of a solar project.
“truSolar promises a market-driven solution to accelerate growth within the commercial solar segment, where common practices throughout the value-chain and adopted by development and finance can bridge the market more quickly toward securitization and solar becoming a significant asset class,” said Chase Weir, chief executive officer – Distributed Sun.
The consortium will engage industry leaders representing key component and counterparty risk factors that best inform an industry standard screen through which a wide range of business methods, analysis tools, and related products and services from varying companies, can be applied. The initiative has been designed to foster best practices and help educate the marketplace on performance, credit and deal term risks, and encourage more reliable decision systems that tie into an industry-adopted credit screen. Industry members will provide expert, technical advice and development support.