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The Technology Innovation.
GreensideEnergy.com is embarking on a journey to solve the laborious process of solar procurement. By combining and integrating various technologies Greenside will develop a managed marketplace specifically for solar installers and solar distributors. In recent years issues at the start of the solar project lifecycle have been addressed. Lead generation tools like Google Sunroof, PickmySolar, and Energysage have made it easy to see potential gains from going solar and design tools like Aurora, and Helioscope have made it easy for installers to create in-depth designs. However, all solar installers still face significant issues during the procurement stage.
As a result of constant fluctuations in pricing and inventory, solar installers are forced to go through a procurement process that resembles the following:

As you can see, today’s solar procurement process is the longest, most cumbersome and inefficient piece of any solar project. Greenside has recognized the need to simplify the process and envisions using knowledge gained in other sectors to create a managed marketplace where installers can procure more efficiently (depicted below).

Marketplace startups have done incredibly well over the first few decades of the internet, reinventing the way we shop for goods. While the first phase of the internet has been about creating marketplaces for goods, a new era of “service marketplaces” (sometimes referred to as “managed marketplaces”) are emerging. We anticipate Greenside entering the marketplace will create a new sales channel for solar distributors.

Greenside’s managed marketplace will make solar product pricing more affordable in general by bringing more solar distributors online. Price transparency generates more competition, which is a main driver in cost reduction in any industry as proven by generalized marketplaces like Amazon. Property owners who are in the market for solar will receive benefits through osmosis when selecting a solar installer who utilizes Greenside for solar procurement. When solar installers are able to procure more efficiently, they save time and money in which they can pass their savings down to the property owner. With all the time saved while procuring materials on Greenside, installers are able to develop more solar projects; thereby increasing the total national amount of installed photovoltaic solar arrays. By lowering the cost per watt, property owners can afford to install larger solar arrays, which ameliorates increase in the average solar installation size throughout the nation.

Beyond driving down the costs, we increase customer satisfaction for all parties involved in a solar transaction. In economics these effects are referred to as “externalities”. Distributors can automate the sales and onboarding process and no longer need to manually take orders, which allows team members to focus valuable energy on other aspects of the business like taking on more clients.Homeowners will benefit through osmosis when their installers procure solar products from Greenside’s marketplace by also witnessing reductions in cost as well as more rapid installations of their projects. The ripple-effects of ease of use, lower costs, and time saved (by using Greenside’s platform) are significant and make the planet the largest benefactor.All of the described benefits increase the likelihood of marketability.

The Technical Objectives and Challenges.
Greenside Energy plans on the following major initiatives: First, we will be focusing on the seller (supply) side of the marketplace, which caters to solar distributors. Our primary technical objective will be facilitating the capability for sellers (distributors) to list their products and manage their inventory, deliveries, and storefronts. We will develop a whole suite of tools for our distributors, which includes an inventory management system, a delivery tracking portal, and a driver application (IOS and Android).

Our Inventory Management system (IMS) web application will be powered by a PostgreSQL database (one of the world’s most advanced open-source databases) that is used by companies like Netflix, Spotify, and Uber. The system will be built on our own custom REST API while also using third-party APIs like twilio for SMS text alerts. The IMS will require overcoming a number of technical challenges, including by not limited to keeping inventories synced with the marketplace; providing simple ways for distributors to keep the inventory up-to-date; supporting distributors with multiple locations and warehouses; a restocking and reorder reminder system and more.

The marketplace needs to sync live-inventory counts from dozens of distributors that will use our Inventory Management System. The IMS feeds into the products available on the Greenside Marketplace. Additionally, the solution has to be engineered to allow installers to select products from multiple distributors while still having one seamless checkout experience.

Our Delivery & Fleet Management Portal (DFM) system requires two separate technologies: one for the web and one for mobile. The web application will be a module inside of the distributor dashboard and integrate seamlessly with Greenside’s other distributor products (Inventory, Greenside Marketplace, Orders and RFQ system). Our mobile application will be available on both iOS and Android. It will require syncing into different phone permissions such as geolocation for tracking the delivery location and camera permission for logging the delivery’s condition at time of drop-off. This will allow us to manage one code base for two platforms (iOS and Android). The DFM system will require us to overcome a number of challenges. The largest will be making sure the delivery data output by the mobile applications syncs across Greenside Marketplace orders, Distributor fleet management system, and our Installer RFQ solutions

The Market Opportunity.
Greenside has two types of customers: solar installers and solar distributors. Installers face significant issues during the procurement stage of a solar project. Small scale solar installers are required to spend 28% more (a 16 cents per watt mark-up) than larger publicly-traded companies like SunRun or Vivint according to NREL. At the same time solar distributors are struggling to manage and onboard solar installers because they are still completing transactions over the telephone or through email. If you visit their websites most do not offer the ability to purchase anything online. Our near term focus will be researching and developing a marketplace specifically for solar distributors and solar installers with a primary focus on the supply side of the marketplace; getting solar distributors on the Greenside Marketplace.
The Company and Team.
Our company at present is a start-up of only three staff members and one advisory board member. The founder and CEO, Kenny Alves, has over 5 years of experience in commercial solar development and 3 years experience in creating mobile-ready, cloud-based applications.When Mr. Alves founded Greenside Energy 5 years ago, originally it was as a turn-key commercial solar development company that installed over a megawatt of solar projects throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. After growing frustrated with the solar procurement process, Mr. Alves decided to pivot the company’s direction and have Greenside become the Amazon of solar products. Our CTO, Anthony Comito, has 6 years of experience working with small companies to build digital products for web and mobile use. Anthony Comito as CTO is responsible for the strategic product direction (transforming product ideas from their initial stages into actionable plans). This includes: product design, product development, project management, and product marketing. The lead software engineer, Anthony Lancaster, has over 10 years of experience in software and mobile application development. Greenside’s advisor, Keith Cronin, has over 20 years of experience serving as a strategic advisor specialized in the solar industry. Mr. Cronin started a solar integration company in Hawaii in 1999; providing services to consumers, the Hawaii government, and the Department of Defense. His company was acquired by SunEdison in 2007. Since then, he has been providing consulting services and co-instructing a Solar MBA course assisting over 400 students gain knowledge into the solar industry.

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