Here are highlights from Energy Trust’s Solar program from this past year.

• Solar trade allies eligible to receive financial management consulting—Energy Trust has contracted with Kendrick Business Services to offer solar trade ally contractors up to $5,000 per year to use toward financial assessment and management services for their businesses.
• Solar trade ally contractor day at the Oregon Solar Energy Conference (OSEC)—On May 10, more than 30 business owners and managers representing 18 solar contractor companies from Klamath Falls, Newport, Bend and Seattle participated in the second annual Solar Contractor Day Business Development training. This year’s training focused on managing sustainable growth in an increasingly complex business environment.
• Solar trade ally star ratings system updated from contractor feedback—In response to solar trade ally feedback, beginning this rating period and going forward, projects placed in Pending Paperwork status will not be counted in the Program Service score. The Program Service score will be solely based on the number of applications that have corrections found during the technical design review and enter Design Rejected status.
• Pacific Power adopts PowerClerk for interconnection process— As of June 1, 2017, Pacific Power required solar trade ally contractors to complete the Level 1 net metering application and agreement for solar projects using PowerClerk. The Solar program is working with Pacific Power to integrate our systems as part of an update to PowerClerk in 2018 and we will keep trade ally contractors informed on that progress.
• Incentive payments expedited for projects with only minor corrections required—Starting August 14, 2017, the solar program began expediting incentive payments for projects that failed system verification but were found to have only minor corrections required. It is still the solar trade ally contractor’s responsibility to make the necessary corrections; however, the change is expected to permit solar trade ally contractors to receive incentive payment checks two to three weeks faster on projects that only require minor corrections.