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Solar energy is an excellent opportunity for businesses, increasing property value, generating long-term savings in building operating expenses, and demonstrating environmental consciousness to the community. But when paying cash is not an option or preferred, how do these clean energy investments get financed?

The solar energy market is rapidly accelerating and has been for roughly the past ten-plus years. Now with the recently signed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a pledge by the Biden administration to move the U.S. to be 100 percent carbon-free by 2035, investors are taking notice.

More and more large corporations are announcing their move to solar, but does going solar make sense for a small business? If you’re a small business owner and curious about the benefits of solar energy, here are three keys to help you assess the viability for your business for a solar installation. 

The fastest-growing job market in America

Solar jobs have been on a rapid rise over the last decade in the United States, with an increase of over 167 percent in that time period. Between 2018-2019, the solar workforce added more than 5,600 jobs nationwide, bringing the national total to just under 250,000 solar workers in America. In the past five years, solar employment has risen five times faster than overall job growth in the U.S. economy.

After the Solar Builder readers cast their votes to choose our annual Project of the Year winners, Solar Builder’s editor picked his favorites among the Project of the Year field of nominees in a variety of categories from the Most Resilient to the Coolest Carport. One of the All Energy Solar install projects was a winner in the 2020 Solar Builder Editor’s Choice Awards!

We’ve known that the U.S. solar industry has been one of America’s premier job-creating machines. Last year alone, the sector added 5,600 jobs, bringing the total number of Americans working in solar to roughly 250,000. But what does the solar industry workforce look like?

Location. Location. Location.

10 States (California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Arizona, Ohio, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada) make up more than half of the United States’ solar jobs. California leads all states with almost 75,000 of the nearly 250,000 solar industry jobs in the U.S. If you’re looking for a career in the solar industry and don’t live in one of those states, don’t worry because many other states are following closely behind. Georgia, Florida, Utah, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Indiana, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Illinois all saw double-digit job growth over the previous year—with Georgia leading the way with a whopping 29.8 percent job growth.

Unlike other large-scale energy production sources, solar energy has minimal drawbacks and many significant benefits. However, there are several often-overlooked benefits that solar can provide.

Grocery stores are some of the biggest consumers of energy in the retail industry, making them prime candidates for investing in solar power. In addition to the typical heating, cooling and lighting of most buildings, grocery stores also have refrigerators, freezers and other types of cold cases that can take up between one-third and one-half of a supermarket’s footprint - and up to 80 percent of their energy costs. That’s not even taking into account larger supermarkets that might have bakeries, butchers, restaurants and other high energy specialty installations.

Minnesota’s clean jobs economy has taken a considerable hit since investments by businesses and consumers began scaling back in March as COVID-19 started shutting down the state’s economy.