A solar sales proposal for an East Coast job has to survive three later reviewers: the customer, the AHJ, and the utility. Pretty production estimates that ignore interconnection tracks and permit constraints get rewritten in week three, usually by engineering, usually after the customer already signed.
This is what a usable solar sales proposal includes for Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania installer teams. It is not a software review.
Project identity
Address, utility territory, rate class if you have the bill, owner vs tenant, and whether the site is residential or commercial. “Eversource” is not enough in New England. Eversource Massachusetts and Eversource Connecticut use different interconnection rulebooks. UI is not Eversource. National Grid MA is not National Grid NY.
If you cannot name the EDC, you cannot name the interconnection application path, and you should not promise a PTO week.
Equipment and layout that engineering can permit
Module count, inverter, storage yes/no, roof vs ground, and a layout that respects fire pathways and setbacks at a schematic level. Sales can be proposal-grade. It cannot be physically illegal.
Athol Energy will turn a proposal layout into permit design without restarting from a napkin if the equipment is frozen. If sales keeps swapping inverters after sign, the proposal was not a proposal. It was a mood.
Solar financial analysis, in the proposal
Production, utility rate assumptions, incentives, and payback or savings, with the assumptions visible.
- Massachusetts: SMART is an incentive program with its own enrollment. It is not permission to operate.
- Connecticut: RRES is tariffed. It often shares a PowerClerk ticket with interconnection at UI. Still two outcomes.
- New York: NY-Sun is NYSERDA. SIR is the utility.
- Pennsylvania: net metering and SRECs under the AEPS / Chapter 75 world. Not PECO’s PTO letter.
- Federal tax credit: say what you are assuming. Do not play accountant if you are not one.
If interconnection study fees are possible (CT Study Process, NY CESIR, MA Standard, PA Level 3), the solar sales proposal should say “study risk, not included” or price a contingency. Surprising a commercial customer with a CESIR after they signed is how you lose the next roof.
Scope, exclusions, and timeline as two clocks
Permit (AHJ) and interconnection (EDC) plus install plus PTO. Write them as separate lines. How long commercial solar permitting takes is not a single number; we already argued that in the commercial permitting post. Residential Simplified jobs still wait on meters.
Exclusions: roof work, panel upgrades, trees, HOA, historic, extra PE stamps if the AHJ demands them after a surprise.
What should a solar sales proposal include? A short list
- Site and utility
- Array size in kW DC and AC
- Schematic layout
- Financials with named incentives
- Interconnection track guess, labeled as a guess until the portal confirms
- Permit path (residential vs commercial)
- Price, payment, change-order rule
- Warranty and who files interconnection
- A sentence on PTO: the system is not authorized to export until the utility says so in writing
Engineering handoff
The best proposals we see attach a one-line sketch and a bill of materials that match. The worst attach a stock photo of a California ranch. You are not in California.
Athol Energy’s sales proposals service is the analysis and layout support behind that packet. We also do the later interconnection application so the kW you sold is the kW you file.
If you want a proposal that engineering can actually stamp later, freeze equipment before you send it.
What should a solar sales proposal include for commercial vs residential
Residential: bill, layout, production, SMART or RRES or NY-Sun or SREC as applicable, ITC assumption, permit path, interconnection track guess, price, PTO sentence.
Commercial: all of that plus demand charges, tariff class, study-risk language, PE stamp allowance, fire access that will survive plan review, landlord signature path, and a schedule with two clocks.
If you use proposal software internally, fine. This article is not about ranking that software. The PDF the customer sees still needs the list above. A tool that cannot name the EDC is a brochure machine.
Common proposal failures we inherit
- Inverter that is not UL 1741 listed for the fast interconnection track
- Layout with no fire path on a townhouse
- “Eversource” without MA vs CT
- Payback that assumes PTO on install day
- kW that crosses PA Level 1 or NY 50 kW without saying so
Fix those in the solar sales proposal and engineering stops being the bad guy.
Athol Energy can build the analysis and the schematic under sales proposals, then take the frozen BOM into design. That handoff is the actual best practice.
Proposal vs contract
The solar sales proposal can be the exhibit to the contract. If it is not, make sure the contract BOM matches the proposal BOM. We have seen contracts that say 8 kW and proposals that show 10 kW. Engineering will permit one of those. Completeness review will notice the other.
Include a line that PTO is a utility act. Customers who think “installed” means “producing” call you during the meter wait. The proposal is the cheapest place to teach that.