Let Run on Sun turn Your Solar Vision into…

…a Solar Reality

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Our Clients Count on Our Expertise to Realize their Solar Vision

Westridge school had a perfect roof for solar…
south-facing, unshaded, and largely unobstructed.
What they didn’t have was a partner to help them transform that potential into a productive reality.

Enter Run on Sun...

Brian Williams, Director of Facilities, Westridge School

Run on Sun provided a "seamless" solution to Westridge School's need to reduce their electric bills…


“What we loved about Run on Sun was the fact that they are very mission driven and really delivered everything that we had asked for, worked with us very professionally, and now not only do we have something that is helping us consume less energy, but it is something that we know we can really use with [our students].”

Elizabeth McGregor, Head of Westridge School

Working with clients, not customers, Run on Sun builds long-term relationships.

At Run on Sun we understand that a commercial solar project is a major investment requiring a solid foundation between client and contractor if the projected Return on Investment is to be realized.
As a result, we emphasize the relationship dimension in our projects.

Clients seek advice—counsel, if you will—not just goods and services, and their need for counsel is entirely different from the transactional encounter experienced by customers with vendors.

It is our client relationship emphasis that gives rise to multiple projects for the same client, as demonstrated by our 2014 project for the Lincoln Avenue Water Company, following up on the project we did for them at their Headquarters building in 2011.

Find out how our focus on you, our client, can make all the difference in your solar project.

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How strongly do we believe in building long-term client relationships?

So much that we wrote the book… and we will give it to you for free!

Commercial Solar: Step-by-Step explains everything that you need to know to manage your solar project, from understanding what is hiding in your bills, to how to assess competing bids, to the nuts and bolts of how your solar installation should proceed.


We give a copy of the book free to all of our prospective commercial clients, regardless of whether they choose us or not. Why would we do that? Simple—we believe that the more you know about commercial solar, the more likely you are to choose Run on Sun.

Reviews for Commercial Solar: Step-by-Step…

A New Solar Sales Bible

Review by Tor Valenza

Commercial Solar: Step-By-Step by Jim Jenal, founder of Run on Sun, a NABCEP solar installer based in Pasadena, California, is a terrific new sales resource for both commercial solar customers — and for commercial solar sales pros.

As its title implies, Step-by Step is meant to be a solar installation guide for potential commercial solar customers. In fact, it's so clear and easy to read that it can also be used as a sales and information template for commercial solar PV sales pros who want to have all of the best practices and customer FAQs at their fingertips.

The book is structured partly as a fictional narrative from the perspective of a fictional California industrial company that wants to decrease its utility bills. The "story" and characters follow a facility manager as he decides to go solar and find a qualified installer for his company.

It would be a two-dimensional promotional pamphlet if Jenal stayed in the fictional world, but Jenal adds the third dimension by following each fictional section with objective non-fiction specific details about the sales and installation process being discussed.

From finding qualified installers to analyzing utility bills, incentives, financing, permitting, and what to look for in terms of PV equipment, Jenal clearly covers each aspect of commercial solar with 100% transparency. From the customer perspective, one of the most valuable sections is where Jenal discusses getting apples-to-apples installer quotes.


Focus on commercial-scale solar - excellent!

Review by “dougout” - Amazon Verified Purchase

To my knowledge, this is the only book that focuses directly on commercial-scale solar. That's enough to make it well worth reading. It's also well organized, well written, and written by a very knowledgeable and experienced solar business owner. Most people in the solar business are familiar with and look forward to the author's excellent Thoughts on Solar newsletter, and I'm sure many of his readers were looking forward to the publication of this book. I was, and it beat my expectations. Good glossary too, and well indexed. Strongly recommended.


Excellent reference.

Review by “Renee W.” - Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is written for the commercial building owner or facilities manager thinking about a Solar Photovoltaic installation. It is very informative and covers all the aspects involved in a commercial solar project. Engaging and humorous read.

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What is hiding in your energy bills?

There is probably a very good reason why neither you nor anyone else at your company has ever looked closely at your electric bill—it is terribly confusing—but almost every commercial user pays for two major charges on their bill: usage and demand.

Usage is the more familiar charge as it is the basis for your residential electric bill. It is based on the total amount of energy that you used over the course of the billing cycle.

Demand is a bit more complicated—for SCE customers, demand is the peak power required during any 15 minute period over the month. That means that if your building has multiple HVAC units and they all come online during the same 15-minute window, your demand will spike much higher than it would if those units came on in a staggered fashion. That's the difference between peak demand and average demand—but your bill is driven by peak demand.

Read More to learn about controlling demand charges…

A commercial solar power system will always help you reduce your energy usage. The harder question is whether it will reduce your demand charges. We will analyze your billing data and give you an accurate prediction of what your actual savings will be.

For some clients, intelligent storage, like that being pioneered by our friends at stem, can help even out the spikes that drive up demand charges and make your investment in solar that much more cost-effective.

Check out their video to learn more about managing demand charges with their intelligent storage solutions.

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LA's Feed-in Tariff offers another approach to Commercial Solar…

A Feed-in Tariff (FiT) is a program by which a utility pays the owner of a solar power system for every kilowatt-hour of energy the system produces. A FiT program contrasts with a net-metering agreement in that the owner of a FiT-supported system does not first consume the energy produced locally (i.e., to power the site's own loads) and then provide any excess to the utility. Rather, the FiT system feeds the utility directly and the system owner does not offset any of their existing usage. Nor does a FiT-supported system receive a rebate from the utility (although they still qualify for Tax Incentives assuming they are a for-profit entity).

As a result, a FiT-supported solar system can be economically attractive where conventional net-metering is not, such as at large sites with relatively low usage or sites that have multiple tenants who each pay for their own electric usage via a separate meter.

The City of Los Angeles has the only viable FiT program in the Run on Sun service area. We have written at length about LA's FiT program on our blog; here are some links to a few of those articles:

The third, 20 MW tranche in LA's FiT program opened on March 17 and the “large” category was immediately over subscribed. The next available tranche is set to open in Q314—we will post the date when it is made public.

Learn more about LA's FiT program at their website.

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Commercial Financing with Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE)

An innovative option for financing commercial projects that is starting to appear is called PACE financing. PACE—which stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy—operates in cooperation with a local government, typically a city or county, that agrees to finance solar power systems through the sale of municipal bonds. Investors purchase the bonds, and the proceeds are used to pay for the installation of the solar power system. The government entity imposes a lien on the property to be discharged after the owner has paid back the system cost over time as an assessment on their annual property tax bills. If the client chooses to sell the property, the obligation "runs with the land" and is assumed by the new owner (who, of course, also derives the benefit from the solar power system).

Under PACE, there is no personal obligation on behalf of the solar client, so neither corporate nor personal credit is at issue. In theory, PACE has the potential to increase greatly the number of entities that could qualify for solar financing.

Commercial properties in Los Angeles County can take advantage of PACE financing to install solar now with little or no out-of-pocket costs! You can learn more about PACE in LA County by giving us a call or by visiting the LA County PACE website.

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Just how bad are your electric bills?

 /month =  /year

A Solar Power System
from Run on Sun
will save you money
starting Day One
and for the next 25 years!

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