How Brightway Energy Uses Scanifly For End-To-End Business Growth
Jason Griffin co-founded Brightway Energy with a mission to help people save money and become more environmentally friendly.
At first, the company relied on manually verified satellite imagery, only using Scanifly for complex jobs
Over time, Brightway realized the value of Scanifly’s full platform and now uses it throughout the project lifecycle, from sales and preliminary designs to full surveys, final designs, and workflow optimizations.
“We used to use Scanifly only for complex jobs. Then we realized the platform could do way more. Now, we use Scanifly across the board and see more accuracy, more sales, and a better customer experience”
Results From Using Scanifly:
Decrease in time it takes to survey a site with Scanifly
Stages of the project workflow where Scanifly adds value for Brightway
Of growth that comes from word-of-mouth and referrals
The Challenge: Streamlining Operations with Technology
After decades of combined experience in solar, Jason Griffin and his co-founders started Brightway Energy with a mission to help people reduce their carbon footprint and save money.
In the years they’ve been in business, the solar market in the northeast (and in particular Massachusetts, where Brightway is located) has become very saturated. To continue to stand out in a crowded market, Jason said the company leaned on its values like customer education, transparency, and fair pricing.
The drive for transparency and fair pricing also pushed Jason to look at technology to streamline operations and leverage data to deliver a better customer experience.
When Brightway first heard about Scanifly, the company already had a proposal and preliminary design tool based on satellite imagery. As a result, Jason first used Scanifly solely for complex sites where he couldn’t get satellite measurements.
Over time, though, Jason realized that keeping Scanifly as a niche tool was a mistake — the platform could offer so much more.
Now, Brightway uses Scanifly across the entire project lifecycle, from sales to preliminary designs, to official site planning, final designs, and installation scoping.
How Scanifly Became an End-to-End Solution for Brightway
As Scanifly’s platform and Brightway’s needs evolved, it became clear to Jason that Scanifly could support the entire solar project lifecycle.
1. Starting with complex surveys
Brightway first started using Scanifly in areas where satellite imagery didn’t exist or was very poor, such as rural-located or new construction properties.
While Jason used the satellite-based platform for other projects, having Scanifly meant Brightway could take on jobs they otherwise would have needed to turn down. Further, Jason was impressed seeing Scanifly in action, since it gave Brightway highly accurate production and shade estimates the team had previously completed with educated guesses. This helps Brigthway continue to improve its forecasting methodology for homeowners' potential offsets by going solar.
"Scanifly has really helped us definitively hone in on an accurate production figure for any spot on a property,” said Jason. “We can figure out, on a per-panel basis, what a site will produce.”
2. Bringing Scanifly into all sold jobs
Jason soon thought Scanifly’s accuracy could have wider-reaching impacts than the occasional complex job. In particular, he wanted to use Scanifly to confirm measurements and inform designs for all jobs he’d previously sold using satellite-based preliminary designs.
Using Scanifly ended up not just confirming measurements but also saving Designer time, since they would not need to estimate things like tree heights, canopy sizes, or other small on-site details.
“We found that the measurements with Scanifly were so darn accurate,” said Jason. “It was also nice that we did one design, and all of those measurements were there with no possibility for human error.”
3. Scanifly as a sales tool
After benefitting from the accuracy and convenience of the Scanifly core platform for sold deals, Jason had another realization: Scanifly could help them close new customers.
Jason explained that the Brightway sales process includes at least one, but often two, site visits. Since he was on-site already, he brought a drone with him to capture data and talk with customers about how Brightway estimates solar production.
“Scanifly is a great selling tool because I can talk to a homeowner and let them know that this is going to be an absolute, definitive way to not only measure the roof, but get a correct shade analysis, production report, etcetera,” said Jason.
After collecting data with a drone on the first site visit, it became easier to build designs quickly. This meant the second time Jason spoke with potential customers, whether in-person or over video chat, he would open the Scanifly model and show the customer exactly what their solar array will look like.
This also gave the sales team an easy opportunity to make changes. For example, some customers didn’t want solar panels on the street-facing roof plane, even if it had the most sunlight exposure. Using Scanifly, Jason could easily make the changes and talk about the resulting production change—this way, customers could make their own informed decisions.
“We've had homeowners choose us because we had the best technology available, and other Contractors didn't,” said Jason.
4. Scanifly for preliminary design
Over a couple of years, Jason went from surveying the occasional complex roof to leveraging Scanifly for comprehensive on-site surveys and as a sales tool. However, Jason still used another preliminary design software because, at the time, Scanifly didn’t have preliminary design capabilities.
As Scanifly built and launched Scanifly Prelim, Jason ran a test to see how this feature would stack up against both the incumbent platform and a niche tool he was trialing. In both cases, Scanifly Prelim was more comprehensive, more accurate with shading estimates, and easier to use.
Shortly after running that test, Jason expanded his use with Scanifly again, replacing the other two platforms. Not only did he save money by not having additional software subscriptions, but the team saved even more time because all information, from prelim to official design, was in a single platform.
“We completely dropped every other modeling software,” said Jason.
5. Streamlining the whole project workflow with Scanifly
After the preliminary design and official site survey, a Technician completes a full site inspection to plan for installation.
A big part of the inspection used to be confirming measurements. Since Scanifly accurately captures all roof measurements, the Technician conducting the inspection can focus solely on the few things drones can’t tell you about roof health, like shingle damage or roof structural integrity.
This massive efficiency from Scanifly means that inspection time is now cut in half, from 1.5-2 hours down to 30-45 minutes. Further, a faster site inspection with confidence in measurements also speeds up the time to create engineering documents and installation plans.
"We used to have to get on roofs and do readings at every point; it just took a lot longer,” said Jason. “Now, even after the first visit, we can see if the project is a fit or not.”
An end-to-end solution
What began as a tool for complex jobs has evolved into a single platform driving efficient project management for Brightway Energy.
Scanifly’s core platform for surveying and design already had wide-reaching applications in sales, marketing, and downstream procurement and installation planning. With other features like Scanifly Prelim added to the mix, Scanifly has become a single platform stretching the entire solar project lifecycle.
“We used to use Scanifly only for complex jobs. Then we realized the platform could do way more. Now, we use Scanifly across the board and see more accuracy, more sales, and a better customer experience,” said Jason.
A Strong Foundation for Future Growth
Jason is happy with the sales, accuracy, and safety benefits from Scanifly. Now, they are ready to grow more. But at the same time, Jason wants to be conscious about growth.
Jason shared that he and his co-founders got into business for three key reasons: to provide for their families, help people reduce their carbon footprint, and help people save money.
Those three things are always top of mind for Jason, and will continue to be as Brightway grows. For Jason, there’s more to growth than simply scaling revenue.
“It’s growing out, slowly but surely,” said Jason. “...Number one for us is transparency and honesty. I want to ensure the people we hire are a good fit for us and our business and are not doing things like some other companies out there. Our people will always embody our values of workmanship, integrity, and quality in everything we do, and embrace technology, where Scanifly, will continue to be a part of that."