SolarGrade Wins American-Made Solar Prize for Software Innovation

HelioVolta, a software developer and leading provider of independent technical advisory and inspection services for solar projects, announced that its SolarGrade software won the American-Made Solar Prize, a multimillion-dollar competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The Solar Prize is designed to energize U.S. solar innovation through a series of contests that accelerate the entrepreneurial process from years to months. SolarGrade is a cloud-based platform that standardizes and automates solar and storage fieldwork with easy-to-use mobile and desktop applications. 

"We built SolarGrade to empower solar professionals like ourselves, who have high standards for quality, safety and performance but are under immense pressure to reduce costs and save time in a fiercely competitive market," commented David Penalva, Co-Founder of HelioVolta. 

HelioVolta will leverage funding from the Energy Department competition to expand its team and accelerate software development efforts. While the company has already built a strong roster of early adopter clients, it now aims to quadruple the existing SolarGrade user base by 2024 by expanding its value proposition and implementing new features that support fieldwork across the full solar project lifecycle. 

"In just a few months, we have already experienced benefits from implementing SolarGrade in our project development, construction and operational asset activities," commented Armando Solis, Sr. Director of Engineering in the Americas for Lightsource bp. "We plan to continue utilizing the platform as it evolves and improves over time."

"SolarGrade was selected as a winner for the fifth round of the American-Made Solar Prize because it meets an increasingly urgent need for solar-specific O&M and fieldwork tools," commented Debbie Brodt-Giles, lead prize administrator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. 

With installed solar capacity in the U.S. projected to grow nearly threefold by 2027 under the Inflation Reduction Act, solar workforce development and labor shortages have emerged as growing concerns for the industry. SolarGrade helps address these challenges with features such as:

• Pre-built and customizable workflows that standardize on-site processes and procedures so that field teams can quickly identify problems.

• Pre-written issue descriptions that improve field documentation and enable accurate, automated reporting. 

• Geo-referenced issue-tracking that reduces time-on-site for future service calls.

"SolarGrade delivers the software features and analytics that solar field teams need to perform work effectively and efficiently. I strongly encourage my colleagues in the industry to adopt the SolarGrade software platform," commented Jack Bennet, President and COO of Nevados. 

The SolarGrade mobile app is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

SolarGrade | https://www.solargrade.io 

HelioVolta | https://www.heliovolta.com/