Launch of the Conductor Solar Marketplace!
Conductor Solar Marketplace
One project. Multiple bids.
Our mission at Conductor Solar is to radically grow solar’s middle market. This market has a massive untapped opportunity, and that opportunity will forever remain “untapped” until the financing process is simplified. Otherwise, sub-$1M projects will continue to be burdened with soft costs from expensive staff, attorneys, and consultants. We’ll know we’re on the right path as we hear the definition of “small projects” change from sub-$1M to sub-$100k.
Conductor Solar is becoming the de-facto CRM for external solar project relationships, providing commercial-solar-specific tools to the market, simplifying project financing transactions, and saving our customers 100+ hours on every deal. We intentionally don’t develop projects and don’t invest in projects, but we have a wealth of experience on each side that we’re infusing into this platform.
We’re just at the start of this journey, and the journey will rely heavily on feedback from our developer and project investor customers. Recent customer feedback is what led us to launch the Conductor Solar Marketplace. Here are some of the highlights:
All types of developers were interested in more competition to increase confidence that they were seeing optimal pricing. So long as incremental project investors were still a good fit for that company/project, this would create a more attractive environment for them.
The more experienced developers indicated that while they love the simplicity of the platform and access to great new investor partners, it still was a pain point to communicate with other investors off platform. They wanted to have all their financing partner discussions in one spot, using one set of project data and receiving bids in the same format for those discussions.
Project investors wanted to see more deal flow. Previously, while three investors may have each been a high-quality fit for a given project, only one would see the opportunity. This would result in investors effectively taking 1/3 of possible swings, and it would diminish an investor’s ability to flex up or down based on current pipeline, workload, or hunger to enter a new market.
Now, this doesn’t mean that every project will be matched with 10+ investors for bids. We anticipate that only a few investors will be selected to evaluate each project, as it’s vital that both parties are still only talking to great potential long-term partners. Newer developers to PPA projects may be best suited for only a single investor conversation, while more experienced developers with larger project sizes may command four or five bids. We endeavor to only display high-quality, tailored projects to our project investor customers, noting that those projects may be different shapes and sizes for one investor vs. another.
One concern we heard from both sides was the question “What if I’m matched with a Developer/Investor that I’ve already closed deals with?” This was a legitimate concern, and we made the decision to waive all fees in that scenario. If the companies have closed on a solar project in the prior 24 months, then let us know and we’ll make sure neither side is charged a cent. We want developers to bring their existing investor partners onto the platform, so we needed to make sure that there wasn’t a disincentive to do so. (Note - this only applies for Developers who are bringing new Investors onto the platform to review their projects alongside other marketplace offerings)
While we are confident that the launch of the Conductor Solar Marketplace is the proper next step in our journey, we will continue to seek customer’s feedback to refine and improve it. So hop into Conductor, submit or bid on some projects, and let us know what you do and don’t love about this latest change!
