Four changes to improve sales and ops standards to always prioritize the homeowner and our industry.
Summary:
TPO providers will have unprecedented leverage in 2026. By offering financial incentives, TPO can better entice sales reps and EPCs to always put homeowner interests first, versus sizing systems to match the production estimates provided at point of sale.
Four recommendations to TPO:
- Financially incentivize EPCs to get onsite, real-time shading data and measurements versus relying exclusively on less accurate remote sources like LiDAR or aerial imagery
- Mandate a pre-PTO / at NTP survey and design submission
- Provide preferred treatment to projects that originate with Recheck-approved and NABCEP Technical certified reps
- SPIF EPCs that use “deal desks” to make PV designs on behalf of sales reps, minimizing manipulation of project layouts
In exchange, TPO provides guarantees for fast-tracking review and payment timelines. With a shortage of TPO capital next year and contractors recalibrating their processes in a post-ITC world, there’s no better time to implement these changes than the next two quarters.
TPO Has Unprecedented Leverage Starting in 2026
Solar is at an inflection point. Third-party owners (TPO), which are the financing organizations that lease solar projects to homeowners and businesses, will define the near-term future for the solar industry. According to Ohm Analytics, TPO is projected to grow from 46% to 70% of solar financing vehicles next year.
Here’s the reality: there simply won’t be enough TPO capital to go around. Building a TPO fund requires specialized expertise, approvals, and comprehensive operational capabilities. Only a limited number of capital providers have both the appetite and capability to invest in this asset class.
This scarcity gives existing TPO providers unprecedented leverage:
Extended tax credits: TPO maintains access to federal solar tax credits through 2027 and up to 2030 if they safe harbor equipment.
Contractor dependency: Large contractors will dominate access to these funds, while smaller installers must aggregate under larger groups or avoid TPO entirely. Reliable TPO players will have waitlists, allowing them to choose partners.
Quality control leverage: TPO will fund most solar installations over the next few years and can set standards for project development. There doesn’t have to be a race to the bottom on price anymore. TPO: This is your moment to incentivize the solar industry to be better!
Why Incentives Are Backwards and Homeowners Suffer
The “Tail Wagging the Dog” Problem
Currently, sales reps and EPCs aren’t financially incentivized to prioritize homeowners. When reps sell using TPO products, they’re selling “savings” from utility bills, not system value. Price gets locked at point of sale, and afterward, everyone becomes motivated to avoid change orders, maintain original estimates, and minimize friction to reach commissioning.
Simply put, reps and EPCs are more incentivized to match an initial proposal locked in by their finance provider than to achieve the most advantageous outcome for the homeowner. I don’t necessarily blame reps or EPCs; this is the current incentive structure.
The Remote Design Disaster
Most reps use poor data and flashy proposals to close sales—outdated aerial imagery, LiDAR data, and increasingly AI-generated designs that miss critical site information. The remote design process is inherently subjective, with designers estimating roof heights, tree sizes, and panel locations.
Remote tools prioritize speed over accuracy, locking in promises without verification. This creates fundamental trust problems as underperforming systems damage industry credibility. Remote designs often lead to disappointing conversations when neighbors compare actual performance.
The brutal statistics speak for themselves:
- Over 25% of projects face revisions or redesigns on install day, based on a Scanifly survey conducted.
- ~40% of projects face TPO rejection due to shading analysis issues, noted a QA team lead who reviews hundreds of submissions daily.
- 5-30% deltas between actual and forecasted production, according to one TPO.
Often, EPCs bear responsibility for poor outcomes, even when the underlying design data remains flawed. To compound the problem, most TPOs use the same remote imagery sources (Aurora’s satellite data) to verify submissions—creating a cycle of inaccuracy validation.TPO: You don’t need to approve and own subpar assets anymore. By locking contractors to poor PV designs at point of sale, you create conflicting goals that hurt homeowners first and fund performance second.
Four Strategic Changes to Raise the Standard in Solar
1. Stop Sizing Systems Just to Match Point-of-Sale Estimates
The Problem: Homeowners are overpromised and underdelivered on production and layouts. Sales teams chase what closes fastest, not what performs best. EPCs aren’t motivated to adjust estimates versus point-of-sale numbers, fearing change orders and cancellations. Installers take all the risk while TPO controls the rules.
The Solution: Financially incentivize EPCs to collect on-site, real-time shading data using tools like Solar Pathfinder, Solmetric SunEye, and drone-based solutions like Scanifly.
Implementation Options:
- Adjust tolerance thresholds for production changes. For PPAs, consider narrowing the band. For straight leases, reduce the band to the downside, while increasing it to the upside. Both will yield more conservative and higher-fidelity sales estimates.
- Treat closed sales as letters of intent regarding production data to maximize flexibility
- Offer preferred pricing for verified on-site data
- Extend cancellation periods until site surveys are completed
- Expedited reviews for comprehensive site data
This acknowledges that accuracy (and therefore the homeowner) should be the priority, not hitting arbitrary remote design numbers.
2. Mandate Pre-PTO Survey & Design Submission
The Problem: Most TPO rejections occur around PTO when systems are already installed and major payments are expected, creating friction and costly adjustments.
Brad Montgomery, VP of Operations at Empower Home Services, explains: “Once the TPO locks the deal, everyone feels trapped. Nobody wants to re-NTP, resubmit, or trigger change orders. So installers just take what they’re given and try to make it work, even when the data is wrong. The homeowner is the one stuck with the result of every bad assumption. A wrong tilt, a missed tree, a rushed sale — that’s 25 years of higher bills for them.”
The Solution: Require onsite survey photo packets, site imagery (ideally drone photos), and final design information before PTO. This allows TPO verification before installation, ideally at NTP.
3. Elevate Sales Standards Beyond Fast, Shady Tactics
The Problem: The barrier to entry for solar sales is extremely low, with people jumping from unrelated industries and using pressured door-to-door tactics. There’s a culture of “selling jobs and then disappearing.”
Sales reps who want to provide better service by collecting accurate data often face pushback from TPO systems that don’t value this extra effort.
The Solution: Mandate or incentivize sales reps to obtain their NABCEP PV technical sales certification, ensuring ethical behavior and technical knowledge. Most TPOs already mandate Recheck as well, which should become standardized across the board.
Implementation Options:
- Subsidize NABCEP trainings
- M1 SPIFs for verified reps with signed contracts and welcome calls
- Mandate or incentivize 2+ sit closes, knowing that a more consultative and educational approach often yields better results for everyone involved.
- Fast-track reviews for credentialed reps
- Invest in technology for proven performers, such as sponsoring drone usage at point of sale or at a welcome call.
4. Reward EPCs with Sales Design Desks
The Problem: Poor sales tactics often stem from sales-created designs where reps are incentivized to maximize panel count and commissions without technical expertise or local knowledge. AI-generated designs and the growing complexity of solar sales due to an array of financial products, incentives, and hardware options are exacerbating this issue.
The Solution: For reps that are not credentialed, per the suggestions in #3 above, incentivize EPCs to create “deal desks”—dedicated PV design teams that create layouts without commission bias. TPO can SPIF EPCs for deal desk costs at NTP/M0/M1 and provide more latitude at later milestones when combined with pre-PTO submissions. Sure, some reps may prefer control and favor speed over quality, so ensure the deal desk can produce designs in under 30 minutes by staffing adequately around the clock.
Additional Quality Improvement Strategies
Payment Timing: Align the vast majority of payments with system energization rather than early milestones to ensure proper incentives.
Technology Enhancement: Mandate drone site surveys to capture all property data and avoid the subjective, human-controlled aspects of PV design. Further down the funnel, use automated review processes and AI-assisted photo packet analysis to streamline QA while maintaining standards. This unlocks QA teams to become technical references for installer partners.
Performance Transparency: Consider publishing partner performance metrics (change order rates, rejection rates, installation timelines) to create accountability and healthy competition. TPOs can divide performance by county or state to acknowledge territorial differences. A version of this could involve paying different rates for better performance.
TPO Commitment: If TPO implements some of these changes, they must commit to paying on time, avoiding arbitrary rejections, and maintaining consistent and reliable standards throughout processes. There needs to be accountability on TPO not to take advantage of contractors who uphold a high commitment to quality.
Why TPOs Should Care Beyond Quality Standards
Projects sized for point-of-sale numbers rather than homeowner optimization will hurt TPO fund performance:
- Production mismatches: Systems won’t meet 20-25 year forecasts
- Reduced securitization pricing: Poor performance data hurts asset valuations
- Fundraising challenges: Underperforming portfolios mean worse terms for subsequent funds
- Higher delinquency rates: Frustrated customers default more frequently
The portfolio approach may temporarily hide individual mistakes, but accumulated underperformance becomes impossible to ignore. Montgomery warns: “Every kilowatt-hour that doesn’t show up is a financial miss for the TPO. One project might slip through, but thousands of systems underproducing? That’s a billion-dollar problem waiting to surface.”
Even before systems become operational, poor processes can lead to financing rejections, clawbacks, and deployment friction. Systemic changes can save hundreds of thousands in inflated QA costs.
TPO: You own the asset; ensure it produces as forecasted. If not, eventually pricing will reflect your performance.
The Time to Act Is Now
Starting January 1, TPO providers can redefine what quality solar looks like. There are few financing organizations remaining, and they carry immense power and responsibility. If TPOs don’t act, the status quo continues.
For too long, loan providers underwrote homeowners, not systems, creating a “Wild West” of accuracy that led to massive industry growth but damaged their reputation. TPO underwrites system quality—so let’s finally be about quality.
As a 15-year solar professional, quality means collecting onsite shading data, eliminating install-day panel moves due to fitment issues, and achieving actual production that matches forecasts. It means consultative selling, not fast sales focused exclusively on savings.
TPOs have the chance to set standards and demand better. These changes aren’t expensive—they’re logistical and structural. They could enhance TPO businesses and partner relationships within months.
With OBBB and safe harbor clarification behind us, this is now your era. It’s up to you to decide whether solar rises—or continues to stumble.
