The AI-powered future of solar field operations

Kamal Shah has seen residential and commercial construction industries shift from analog procedures to more advanced, software-driven practices to improve job site operations. He’s also played an integral role in introducing these new efficiencies to the solar industry through his company SiteCapture. The software platform, available to the residential and commercial solar markets, helps manage data collection and verification across the entire lifespan of the solar array, from site survey through operations and maintenance. Shah joins us for this episode of Solar Spotlight to discuss some of the biggest trends in contemporary solar and how SiteCapture is keeping a long view on the future of photovoltaics.

An excerpt of this interview is available below and you can listen to the full conversation here or on your preferred podcast service.

Who does SiteCapture serve and what problems do you solve for the industry?

Our biggest industry is the solar industry — we started in solar back in 2015. The primary goal is to help solar installers operate more efficiently and help their businesses succeed. Solar has a lot of needs for capturing really good documentation and photos on the job site, and that’s what got us into it — whether it’s site surveys on the front end, documentation of the installation for quality control or solar financing, or operations and maintenance work like inspections and work orders. Over the years, we’ve also been able to support the workflows that surround those processes: submitting to solar finance companies, connecting subcontractors and EPCs, all of it. We’re a field operations management platform for the solar industry, bringing efficiency to all the work that gets done in the field.

What are your EPC and installer clients saying about working in a market landscape shaped by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act?

For folks who’ve been in the solar industry a long time, this is the classic solar coaster — another ride on that. This year, everyone is adjusting to the impacts of the bill and the removal of the tax incentives for homeowners, so there’s a lot of volatility and uncertainty for many installers. We’re hearing from the installers we work with that it’s challenging, but everybody sees it as a short-term problem to adjust to the new realities. At the same time, the price of and demand for electricity continue to go up, which presents a massive long-term opportunity for the industry, and almost every installer and EPC we talk to wants to understand how they can leverage AI. So it all goes together: adjusting to the bill, but also planning for the future.

I understand SiteCapture just released SiteCaptureAI. Where do you think AI is having the biggest impact in the solar market, and what implications does it have for installer operations?

Kamal Shah, SiteCapture

In business, AI is having huge impacts in jobs that are primarily digital — coding, accounting, legal, writing. Solar still has a very hands-on component. It requires people to get on roofs and put panels up, and installers have incredible skill and expertise that’s not going to be replaced by AI. So in solar, you look at the tedious, time-consuming processes that surround the installation — design verification, generating plan sets for permitting, and the quality control and compliance work needed to pass AHJ and finance partner requirements. That’s where AI will have the biggest impact. SiteCapture is focused on the quality control and compliance piece. Installers already use our platform to complete forms and capture photos. With SiteCaptureAI, we can help them analyze those photos instantly, automate a first pass on QC and give installers feedback while they’re still on the job site. Today that review happens manually, often hours after submission — the installer has left, and now you have to roll another truck to fix the issue.

TPO financing models are growing in popularity, and SiteCapture integrates directly with financing companies. Where are financiers and EPCs seeing success, and where does SiteCapture fit in?

The bill impacted homeowners but didn’t impact TPO providers from a tax incentive perspective, so that incentive remains in place. That’s made TPO the most cost-effective and most popular choice for homeowners who want solar, and we’re seeing a big increase in the percent of residential installs done under TPO. What’s different under this model is that TPO providers require comprehensive photos and documentation before they release payment to EPCs, and that can be a lot of overhead. We’ve partnered with solar finance companies to make that easier: tailored forms that ensure installers capture all the required photos correctly the first time, then one-click submission to the finance partner instead of manually organizing and uploading to a portal. With our first partner, Palmetto LightReach, after a year we’re seeing installers’ first-time approval rates on financing documentation go from the 30% range to the 90% range — so they’re getting paid faster — plus truck rolls for missed photos reduced by up to 80% and back-office overhead reduced by about 70%.

Over the next couple of years, what do you think will separate the solar companies that succeed from those that don’t?

The starting point is adapting to the current reality this year — a lot of change is happening from the modifications to the tax incentives, and to succeed you’re going to have to adapt well. The second part is preparing for the growth curve that’s coming and is inevitable. With continuously increasing costs of – and demand for – electricity, solar is still the most effective way to deliver on that demand. So how do you prepare? A lot of it is adopting tools, technologies and more efficient processes so installers can set themselves up for growth and scale without significantly increasing costs. The companies that do that will have a huge competitive advantage when this industry gets some tailwinds behind it and the growth starts going.