Commercial & C-PACE
Commercial solar, and a federal credit you can still claim.
Helio designs, engineers and builds commercial arrays, storage and efficiency work across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland — the same crews that do the houses, on a different set of forms.
The investment credit did not expire for businesses
This is the part worth understanding before you price anything. The 30% credit homeowners used to claim ended for expenditures after 31 December 2025. The commercial investment credit did not — and if your business owns the system, your business claims it.
Commercial 48E Investment Tax Credit. The credit that survives — and it is never a line on your 1040. On a lease or a PPA the system owner claims it and prices it into what you pay. How long a system has to be built depends on when its equipment was safe-harboured: equipment committed before the end of 2025 carries eligibility through December 31, 2029 and is exempt from the federal sourcing rules, while a project starting fresh today has to be running by December 31, 2027. That gap is the reason third-party ownership can still carry a federal benefit in years when buying the system outright carries none — and it is a finite runway with a date on it, not a permanent feature. Ask any provider which of the two applies to your system, and get it in writing.
Which safe-harbour tier a project sits in decides how long it has to be placed in service, and the two deadlines are years apart. Ask us which one applies to your building and get it in writing — from us or from anyone else bidding it.
C-PACE: the financing stays with the building
Connecticut C-PACE funds commercial energy upgrades as a benefit assessment on the property rather than as a loan to you. That structure is the point: the obligation travels with the building when it sells, terms run long enough for the savings to carry the payment, and it does not consume your borrowing capacity.
It is most useful when the roof, the HVAC and the array should be one project and one payment instead of three capital requests in three different years. That is the version of this work we would rather do anyway — replacing a roof under an array you installed last year is nobody’s idea of a good outcome.
EPC and dealer programs
If you are a builder, a developer, or a sales organisation, we will carry the engineering and construction so you can put solar on the bid without standing up a construction company to do it. Design, permitting, interconnection, install, and the warranty that follows.
We will also say plainly when a project is outside what we should take on. A commercial job we cannot staff properly is worse for you than a referral.
What we need to scope it
Commercial work does not fit the residential estimator, so this one skips the instant number entirely. Three questions about the building and how to reach you is enough to start, and it goes to the people who scope commercial rather than into the visit calendar. Bring what you have of the following and the first call gets much further:
- The address, and who owns the building. Owner-occupied, leased, or a landlord improving a tenant space — it changes who claims what.
- Twelve months of utility bills for the meters in scope. Demand charges matter more than consumption on most commercial accounts, and they do not appear on a single month.
- Roof age and any structural reports you already hold. If the roof has under a decade left, that is part of the project.
- What is driving the timing. A lease renewal, a capital cycle, a sustainability commitment and a failing chiller are four different projects.
Would rather just write to us? The contact form reaches the same people.