On Aug. 31, Sol Systems launched SolMarket with $350 million in financing available to solar developers. The service will help developers find funding suitors for projects throughout the U.S. starting at 50 kilowatts and going up from there.

“[SolMarket] is a new financing platform intended to catalyze investment in solar energy projects nationwide by transforming how solar projects are financed,” Sol Systems said in a press release.

The company is a solar finance firm and aggregator of solar renewable energy credits (SRECs). It has 2,300 customers and over 20 megawatts of solar capacity under management.

“It’s like a solar-dating service on a whole lot of steroids,” said Sol Systems CEO Yuri Horwitz. Developers can create a project profile, kind of like a social media page, and then a separate financial profile that’s much more in depth, Horwitz said.

They can also specify what type of funding they’re seeking, whether it be tax equity, equity, loans, power-purchase agreements or other forms of financing.

“We have certain investor partners that we’ve gotten together with to push money through the SolMarket platform. That aggregate fund will grow with time.” Horwitz said.

The $350 million is reserved specifically for solar projects.

“That’s where we’re at right now, and it’s quickly growing,” he said.

The service helps to standardize the financing process and provides both investors and developers tools they need to originate, evaluate, finance, and construct renewable energy projects.

“We’re trying to drive efficiencies through the solar market. Given that it’s a distributed generation asset class that is fairly fragmented at this time, we believe providing a unified originating process is going to help catalyze [movement] for both developers and investors,” Horwitz said.

SolMarket has a fairly robust toolset for developers that includes a document library, modeling software, and a standardized document suite, according to Horwitz. It will also offer group purchase discounts for solar modules and other equipment to developers.

Investors looking to finance projects can log in to the platform and check out proposed projects to see if they meet their requirements. When they find an ideal project, they can contact the developer to learn more about the proposed project.

Sol Systems engaged with its developer partners and investors to create SolMarket.

“We have over 250 developer and installer partners in the Sol Systems network. We worked with a number of them to help build this platform. In terms of investors, there were a number of investors we talked with as well,” Horwitz said.

Developers pay no fee to use the service, according to Horwitz.

“Fees for investors are dependent on the investor and the specifics of the project, but they’re very small,” he said.

Image courtesy of Sol System partner Altenergy.