Updated: August 3, 2025 · Focus: Commercial Rooftop Solar Feasibility
Quick take
Before you spend development bandwidth or get stuck in procurement, run your commercial rooftop through this site selection & feasibility checklist. The right roof, ownership structure, load profile, and financing alignment (including pairing with a PPA and optional C-PACE overlay) determine whether the project delivers immediate clean energy savings with no upfront capital. Finish by submitting your real data to USSE for a custom savings assessment—don’t guess, validate.
1. Why Site Selection & Feasibility Make or Break a Commercial Solar PPA
A good commercial rooftop solar project starts before the proposal. Poor site qualification is the most common failure mode—wasted design effort, unexpected costs, suboptimal system sizing, or outright infeasibility. This checklist distills the high-leverage gates that separate deployable roofs from dead ends. Completing it quickly lets you prioritize targets and has USSE model your real economics with a savings assessment so you can move only on sites that actually pay back from day one.
2. Site Selection & Feasibility Checklist
1. Roof Condition & Usable Area
Verify the rooftop has sufficient clear, unshaded square footage, acceptable age/health (no imminent replacement), and pitch/orientation accommodative to solar. Get recent roof reports or do a quick visual inspection—avoid surprises like membrane failure mid-project.
2. Structural Capacity
Confirm the roof structure can support panel racks, ballast, or attachment hardware. A basic engineering review or past structural report can clear most commercial rooftops; flag any that need expensive reinforcement early.
3. Solar Resource & Shading Analysis
Use satellite/shading tools or a quick on-site sun path check to ensure minimal persistent shading from neighboring buildings, HVAC equipment, or trees. Even small shading can cripple output; this gate filters efficiency losers.
4. Electrical Infrastructure & Interconnection
Determine the existing service size, main panel capacity, and utility interconnection rules. Check if upgrades are required and whether the local utility has straightforward interconnection. Hidden upgrade costs kill IRR if not caught early.
5. Load Profile & Metering Data
Acquire recent interval or billing data (ideally 12 months) to size the system realistically. Peak daytime usage alignment with solar output is critical for maximizing PPA value and achieving immediate savings. Don’t model without real numbers—submit them for a tailored assessment.
6. Ownership & Term Alignment
Confirm the property owner (or long-term lessee) is willing to enter a PPA and/or permit a C-PACE assessment if layering financing. Understand sale/transfer risk and ensure contract terms cover the expected hold period.
7. Financing Stack Compatibility
Assess whether the site can support a PPA structure—does the customer want off-balance-sheet clean energy, and is cash flow sufficient to model savings? Evaluate adding C-PACE to eliminate upfront cost and combine with the PPA for immediate positive cash flow.
8. Permitting & Local Policy
Quick validation of local building/solar permitting requirements, utility incentives, and whether the jurisdiction has any special hurdles that could delay deployment. Lead time here affects go-live timing and savings ramp.
3. Tactical Next Steps to Qualify & Model Your Site
1. Rapid Triage
Run the property through the checklist above. If any critical item fails (bad roof, impossible interconnection, ownership misalignment), deprioritize. Otherwise, collect billing/interval data, ownership docs, and basic site photos.
2. Submit for USSE Savings Assessment
Send your real load data, property address, and financing intent to USSE. We’ll model system size, PPA pricing, optional C-PACE overlay, and provide projected net savings—no guesswork. This is the decisive input before proposal creation.
3. Align Contracts & Financing
Draft the PPA to reflect the modeled savings, secure any necessary owner approvals, and if using C-PACE, initiate the assessment application in parallel to eliminate upfront capital.
4. Execute & Monitor
Deploy the system, commence the PPA, and track performance against the savings model. Early monitoring ensures any variance is caught and communicated before it erodes ROI.
4. Illustrative Economics from a Qualified Roof
Scenario: 150 kW commercial rooftop system on a well-qualified Dallas building. Real utility bill data shows average blended rate of 14¢/kWh during daytime usage. USSE models a PPA at 11.5¢/kWh while layering in C-PACE financing to eliminate upfront capex, spreading the assessment over 20 years (equivalent to ~6.0¢/kWh). The result: immediate net savings of ~3.5¢/kWh, positive cash flow from month one, and predictable energy spend with inflation hedge.
The actual dollar savings and payback depend on roof output, contract term, and utility escalation; the assessment uses your real data to give you a confidence-gradeable decision signal before committing resources.
5. FAQ & Common Pitfalls
A: Severe shading, imminent roof replacement, structural inability without major retrofit, or electrical interconnection requiring high-cost utility upgrades.
A: You can estimate, but the confidence gap is large. USSE’s savings assessment uses your interval or billing data to avoid modeling mistakes that kill deals or leave money on the table.
A: Most commercial roofs get a preliminary savings assessment within 3–5 business days after submission of core data (usage, ownership, and basic site info).
A: No. The assessment informs the structure. You get a clear view of economics and optional layering (PPA alone, C-PACE alone, or combined) before contract drafting.
Validate Your Rooftop & Lock in Savings
Submit your site data and load profile. We'll tell you definitively if the rooftop qualifies, how a PPA (with optional C-PACE overlay) layers to deliver immediate savings, and what the cash flow looks like—no fluff, just numbers you can act on.
*Illustrative. Final structure depends on property specifics, data provided, and financing approval.