Start with plain English. The detail is behind the other three tabs when you want it. Nothing here commits your district to anything.
Step 1 readiness: August 3 to September 4, 2026Step 2 full application: due January 4, 2027Because we would like to bid your project, and the honest way to earn that is to be useful before anyone owes anyone anything.
So that you can weigh what follows properly:
Commerce scores your readiness assessment out of 96 points. Around 60 of those points cost nothing, they are decisions about sequencing, one phone call, and one document. Most districts leave half of them on the table.
Five weeks. Front-load it and the last week is review rather than rescue.
| Week | Do this | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Now, before August 3rd | Email Commerce for a Project ID. Ask your business office to export two years of usage figures — a data pull, not a stack of bills. Confirm who signs grant applications for the district. | district |
| Week 1 Aug 3 to 9 | Commerce publishes Round 2's full RFP details and attachments — confirm rates and requirements. Book the CERTs consultation immediately (the calendar fills). Get the usage data across to us. | shared |
| Week 2 Aug 10 to 16 | Production model and size determination. Roof records pulled. Schedule the Xcel account-manager call. | us |
| Week 3 Aug 17 to 23 | Hold the Xcel call. Take the CERTs consultation. Draft the curriculum and student engagement plans. | shared |
| Week 4 Aug 24 to 30 | Full package assembled and sent to you for review. Authorized representative signs off. | shared |
| Week 5 Aug 31 to Sep 4 | Review, correct, submit. This week should be slack, not work. | district |
In order of points-per-effort. The first four are free.
Scoring: one application = 24 points. Two = 18. Three = 12. Four or more = 6. Filing for several buildings at once costs your best project 18 points.
If you have several good roofs on one building: our reading of the RFP is that separately-metered systems have to be separate applications — each on its own meter, with its own Project ID, prioritized against each other in the same round. So the second one is scored as a second application and loses points under the table above. More capacity is not free, and we would rather tell you that than let you find out in the scoring. We have the question in front of Commerce for a written answer and will pass on whatever comes back. Until then, plan on one building — your Project ID carries forward forever, so a second building is a next-round option rather than something to force into this one.
All-or-nothing, and verified with CERTs staff. It is a free phone call with a University of Minnesota Extension program that exists to help you. There is no argument against it.
Committing up front to a public RFP scores full marks. Two proposals scores half. Nothing scores zero.
Worth knowing: the program requires competitive procurement anyway, whatever the financing structure. So committing early is free points for something you must do regardless, and it means nobody, including us, can be sole-sourced.
Scored on how well-founded your size number is. Size is locked at this stage so Commerce can reserve funds, and changing it later needs a petition that Commerce says larger changes are less likely to survive.
Full marks looks like: 24 months of metered use at the identified meter · a production model for that specific roof · size checked against the 120%-of-consumption limit · size chosen deliberately against the grant rate bands.
This is the piece we do for you, at no cost and no obligation.
Six points each. A district-level curriculum plan is acceptable, it does not have to be building-specific, which matters when teachers are away in August.
An existing environmental or STEM club is strong evidence for both. CERTs provides this free as part of the state program — ready-made curriculum options and student-engagement resources, not just the consultation call. Ask for them when you book: cleanenergyresourceteams.org/solarschools.
Reducing your ask by 10% or more scores 12 points. On a $675,000 request that is $67,500 given up.
Our honest advice: skip it. A well-prepared district reaches the mid-80s without touching this, and the program awarded only 9 grants in 2025 against a heavily under-subscribed budget. Revisit only if Commerce signals the round is oversubscribed.
Minneapolis runs a Green Cost Share program that can add up to $50,000 on top of the state grant, and more if the building sits inside a Green Zone. We are confirming whether public school districts qualify, and we will tell you either way.
| Your district's situation | Points |
|---|---|
| No solar of any kind | 12 |
| Has solar already, or a community-solar subscription | 6 |
| Previously received a Solar for Schools grant | 0 |
The readiness assessment is submitted by someone authorized to act for the district, usually the superintendent or business manager. It does not require a board resolution. Commerce asks for a signed letter from an authorized representative in one narrow case only: a district petitioning to increase its grant cap. Worth confirming your own district's internal policy for signing grant applications, but for a submission that commits no money, most districts do not route it to the board.
Step 1 needs a conversation with Xcel, not a filing. You describe the communications you've had — interconnection process, timeline, any roadblocks — and, only if the system is over 40 kW AC, you're encouraged (not required) to get a signed letter confirming the utility allows that size. The actual interconnection application isn't filed and no fee is paid until after the grant is awarded — it's a milestone during the 24-month contract term, well after your district has selected a developer through its own procurement process.
Deliberately shown in full and up front. Most of the workload sits in a five-week window in August, then goes quiet until December.
None of this is needed for Step 1. All of it sits between award and construction, and it runs on other people's calendars, so it is worth knowing now.
If a third party owns the array, the district signs two agreements, a roof lease (we rent the roof space) and a power purchase agreement (you buy the electricity it makes). Around those two documents sits a surprising amount of administration:
| Item | Why it takes time |
|---|---|
| Board approval of the lease and PPA | A public meeting on the board's schedule, not ours. Often the long pole. |
| Notarized execution | By the authorized signatory. Confirm early who that actually is, it is not always who you would guess. |
| Recording with the county | A memorandum of lease is recorded against the parcel. Needs a legal description and an exhibit identifying the roof area. |
| Title check on the parcel | Confirms the district owns what it is leasing and shows any existing encumbrances. |
| Lender consent / SNDA | Only if there is a mortgage. Standard document, but it is another party's legal review. |
| Bond counsel check | Ask early. If the building was financed with tax-exempt bonds, private-use restrictions may apply to a commercial arrangement on the roof. Your bond counsel will know in one call; finding out late is expensive. |
| Local permits | Building and electrical permits from the municipality, plus any zoning review. |
Tick as you go. Nothing here commits you to a developer or to spending money.
Due January 4, 2027, and the developer completes this one. Shown so you can see what is coming.
The short version: you make decisions and press submit. We do the assembly and the technical work.
| Task | Owner | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Request Project IDs | shared | Commerce issues to the school. We draft the email; you send it. |
| Pull 24 months of electricity use | district | Business office or Xcel account manager |
| Format it into Commerce's grid | us | We fill in Attachment 4 for you |
| Roof age, condition, warranty status | district | From your own facilities records, no site visit needed |
| Production model for the roof | us | |
| Size determination | us | The 12-point item |
| Describe utility communications | shared | Step 1 only — the actual interconnection application isn't filed until after award |
| Interconnection application (post-award) | shared | Filed in the district's name after your developer is selected; we can act as application agent |
| Single-line and site diagrams | us | Needed for the Full Application (Step 2), not Readiness |
| CERTs consultation | district | Must be the district, that is what earns the points |
| Confirm tariff and rate class | district | It is printed on your bill, send us a copy and no call is needed |
| Curriculum and student engagement plan | shared | You own the content; we can draft from your input |
| Authorized representative sign-off | district | No board resolution needed for a standard application |
| Assemble the readiness package | us | |
| Submit in the grant portal | district | Must be you. The district is the applicant and the grantee, we cannot submit on your behalf |
| Run the RFP | district | We bid it like anyone else |
| Full grant application (Step 2) | us | Commerce expects the developer to complete this |
| Milestone and annual reporting | us | For the life of the system |
The State of Minnesota will pay a large share of the cost of putting solar panels on a school building. You apply in two stages: a short application by September 4th that gets scored, and a longer one by January 4th that your chosen contractor fills in. Most districts do this with nothing down: a company like ours owns the panels, and the district simply buys the electricity, usually for less than the utility charges — that's the version with zero financing decision on your side. If your district can bond, or would simply rather own the system outright, we can help structure that instead; either way, what's actually due by September 4th is a short application and a handful of easy first steps, not a financing decision. The district keeps its own utility credits. Your electricity bill goes down, students get a real system to learn from, and the roof is otherwise unaffected. You are allowed to stop at any point, and nothing in this document obliges you to anything.
| Term | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| kW (kilowatt) | Size. How much electricity the system can make at one instant, like the engine size of a car. A typical school project here is 125 kW. |
| kWh (kilowatt-hour) | Amount. Electricity actually produced or used over time, the unit on your utility bill. A 125 kW system makes roughly 156,000 kWh a year. Size is the engine; kWh is the miles driven. |
| kWdc vs kWac | Two ways of measuring the same system. DC counts the panels; AC counts what reaches the building after conversion, which is always a bit less. The grant is calculated in DC; the legal size limits are in AC. You do not need to track this, we do. |
| PPA power purchase agreement | A contract where someone else owns the panels and you just buy the electricity they make, at an agreed price per kWh. Like a mobile phone contract rather than buying the handset. |
| Interconnection | Utility permission to connect the system to the grid, plus the paperwork to get it. Filed after your grant is awarded and your developer is chosen, not before — Step 1 only asks you to describe conversations you've had with the utility so far. |
| Readiness assessment | Stage one. A scored application saying "we are organized enough to do this." |
| REC renewable energy credit | A certificate representing the environmental benefit of one MWh of clean electricity, tradeable separately from the electricity itself. In Xcel territory these go to Xcel by law, see the note on the "Who does what" tab. |
| PV Demand Credit | An Xcel bill credit for solar produced in the afternoon peak. It stays with the district in our structure. |
| ANTC / APU | Two state school-finance measures. Their ratio decides which grant rate band your district falls into. We look it up for you. |
| Ballasted racking | Mounting held down by weight rather than bolts. No holes in the roof, which is usually what a facilities director wants to hear. |
| Prevailing wage | State-set minimum construction wages that apply to this grant. Raises cost, is not optional, is already in our numbers. |
Under a power purchase agreement, no capital. You buy electricity at an agreed rate. There is staff time, realistically a few hours across August, mostly your business office pulling usage data and your board approving a letter.
That works too, and it captures more value long-term since you're not paying anyone else's return on the system. Direct ownership, cash or bond-financed, is a fully contemplated path in the program's own paperwork, and we can help size, spec and manage that build the same way we would a PPA. The September 4th application asks the same questions either way, just with a different answer on financing.
Then we should not put an array on that building. Tell us which roof is newest and we will design around your replacement schedule instead of against it.
The contract sets it out: the district can buy the system at fair market value, extend, or have it removed at the owner's cost. Removal and recycling obligations are a grant requirement, not a promise. Many districts buy the system around year six, once the depreciation and tax benefits that made the low PPA rate possible have largely run their course. At that point the buyout is usually a good deal for the district: it trades a per-kWh PPA payment for owning a paid-off asset producing power at effectively full retail value, with no further payment to anyone.
Under a PPA you pay per kWh delivered, so underproduction costs the owner, not you. That is the point of the structure.
Not accurately, because the renewable energy credits go to Xcel by law. You can say you supply solar to your utility. If you want the stronger claim, replacement credits are inexpensive. Details on the "Who does what" tab, we would rather raise it now.
Nothing happens. The program runs to 2032 and your Project ID carries forward. This round is a good one because it has been under-subscribed, but missing it is not fatal.
Ranked by what moves a decision, not by what sounds best. Each one carries where it comes from and what would undercut it. The fifth reason is the one most solar pitches lead with, and it is the weakest of the five once you say it accurately.
This is the reason to look now, and it has nothing to do with us. The 2026 round threw out the old structure — a percentage of cost capped by a flat dollar amount — and replaced it with dollars per watt. The per-building dollar caps went away. The same project is worth substantially more than it was last year:
| Your need band | A 125 kW project in the 2025 round | The same project now |
|---|---|---|
| A — lowest property wealth per pupil | capped at $175,000 | $292,500 |
| B — middle, or a Tribal contract school | capped at $150,000 | $260,000 |
| C — highest, and most districts are here | capped at $125,000 | $227,500 |
And the money is not being taken. Commerce awarded 9 grants statewide in 2025, against 54 the year before, with the budget substantially unspent. A district that priced solar in 2024, did the math, and passed is looking at a different number now.
Source: 2025 round RFP (COMM-SFS08) Table 1 against 2026 round RFP (COMM-SFS09) Table 2, and the amended rate chart of February 4, 2026. Award counts from Commerce's own program reporting.
Under a power purchase agreement you buy the electricity the array makes at an agreed rate per kWh instead of buying it from Xcel. There is no district capital in it, and the rate is set for the term.
The part that is usually gotten wrong: Xcel pays a PV Demand Credit for solar produced in the afternoon peak, and it is paid to the customer of record — which is the district, not us. Some structures move that credit to the system owner. Ours leaves it with you, deliberately, because it is worth more in a school district's hands than in a taxable company's. That is not generosity, it is arithmetic, and we will show you the arithmetic.
Source: Minn. Stat. 216C.375 and Xcel's published PV Demand Credit tariff. No savings figure appears anywhere in this document because a real one requires 24 months of metered use at your meter, which we do not have yet.
This is the objection we hear first and it is the one with the clearest answer. Around 60 of the 96 scored points are sequencing decisions, one free phone call, and one document — not work product.
Three different asks get muddled here, so to be precise about which is which:
| What | How much billing history | Why |
|---|---|---|
| What we need to screen your building | One recent bill | It carries your rate class and your actual delivered rate. That is the whole first ask. |
| What Commerce requires to accept the application | Two years of usage numbers on their grid, plus one actual bill | Attachment 4 is a fill-in table. It is not 24 bills — it is 24 rows your business office or Xcel account manager exports in one go. |
| What scores full marks on system size, and what your own RFP will need | Two years at the identified meter, ideally with hourly data | Size rigor is 12 of the 96 points, and bidders cannot price a system properly without it. This is the reason to pull two years even though Commerce would accept less. |
So the district's actual labor in August is: one export request to your business office or account manager, one free consultation call, one bill sent to us, and a signature. Everything that looks like a grant application — the size determination, the production model, the attachments, the assembly — is ours, at our cost. You press submit, because the program requires the district to be the applicant. We cannot do that part and we will never claim we can.
Source: RFP COMM-SFS09 §VI.B scoring criteria, scored item by item on the "Step 1. Score well" tab.
Student engagement and curriculum are 12 of the 96 points, and the array itself has to display live and cumulative production by statute — so there is a real data feed, on a real building, that students can use.
There is a deadline inside the deadline here. The evidence has to pre-date your readiness assessment, so a club that starts in October cannot earn points for a September application. If you already have an environmental or STEM club, that is strong evidence for both criteria and it costs nothing to write down. CERTs supplies curriculum material free.
Source: RFP COMM-SFS09 §VI.B criteria 3 and 4; Minn. Stat. 216C.375 (display requirement); Comprehensive Q&A Attachment 8 (district-level curriculum acceptable, and program funds may not be used to train staff).
An array on a school roof generates real clean electricity. But in Xcel's service territory Minnesota law assigns the renewable energy credits to Xcel for the life of the system, and the credits are what carry the environmental claim. So the district cannot accurately say it is "solar powered," and cannot count the array against its own carbon goals.
What is accurate: "We supply solar to our utility so it can meet its renewable energy goals." If the board wants the stronger claim, replacement credits can be bought separately and inexpensively.
Source: Minn. Stat. 216C.375 subd. 12; EPA Green Power Partnership guidance on renewable energy credit ownership and use claims.
If the arithmetic on your building does not clear, we will say so and stop, and you will keep the analysis. That is not a courtesy — a district that gets talked into a project that does not pencil is a district that tells every other business manager in the state about it. The program runs to 2032 and your Project ID never expires. Not this round is a perfectly good answer.
TRACK_RECORD array near the bottom of this file has real entries. Each photo needs: site name, town and state, system size in kW, year completed, and one line on what we did. Do not fill these in from memory — pull them from the project records so the caption is sourced like everything else here.Our school solar development work to date has been in Connecticut. These are our own projects, not stock photography and not someone else's array.