Answer
Score a commercial solar opportunity by separating its potential value from the evidence supporting the next action. Record customer authority, site access, usable project data, delivery fit and unresolved risks. Use unknown as a real state, define hold conditions and calibrate any numeric scoring against actual outcomes before treating it as predictive.
A large site and an interested contact do not tell an EPC team whether to commit detailed design effort. The qualification decision is narrower: what work is justified next, and what evidence is needed before investing further?
This is a proposed evaluation worksheet, not a validated sales model. It does not assign win probabilities, forecast revenue or establish technical project feasibility.
Name the investment decision
Distinguish a discovery call, data review, site visit and detailed proposal. Each consumes different resources and needs different evidence. Record which action the team is deciding now.
Avoid one “qualified” label that follows an opportunity through every stage without another review.
Separate attractiveness from evidence quality
A potentially valuable project can still have weak evidence. Record those assessments separately so a large estimate does not hide an unresolved decision-maker or site question.
| Dimension | Evidence to request | Useful state |
|---|---|---|
| Customer objective | The decision the customer is trying to make | Clear / unresolved |
| Decision authority | Who can authorize the next step | Identified / unconfirmed |
| Site and access | Property context and permission needed for the proposed work | Confirmed / unresolved |
| Load and project data | Records needed for the next analysis | Usable / incomplete / not yet assessed |
| Commercial route | Budget, procurement process or proposed funding discussion | Defined / exploratory |
| Delivery fit | Fit with the EPC’s supported scope and available capacity | Within scope / exception |
| Open technical questions | Issues requiring qualified review | Assigned / unassigned |
These states are suggestions to adapt. They do not establish a universal threshold for accepting commercial solar projects.
Define hold conditions before scoring
Agree which unresolved items stop a particular investment. An unknown property relationship might stop a site commitment while still allowing a discovery conversation. Missing project data might prevent a meaningful detailed proposal while justifying a focused request for information.
Have the responsible technical or commercial owner decide the boundary. Do not award compensating points to make a material unresolved condition disappear.
Use numbers only when the team can explain them
If the business uses a numeric score, document the criteria, weights, missing-data treatment and action thresholds. Label it as an internal prioritization rule until evidence supports a stronger interpretation.
Do not translate a score into a probability of closing without a suitable outcome analysis. A number can make an inconsistent judgment look more precise without improving it.
NASA’s decision-analysis guidance describes evaluating alternatives and documenting assumptions and limitations when knowledge is incomplete. It supports making the decision criteria explicit; it does not validate this solar qualification worksheet or predict sales outcomes.
Test the decision on contrasting opportunities
Illustrative comparison: one enquiry describes a large installation but lacks confirmed site access and a decision owner. Another describes a smaller project with usable records and an agreed next meeting. The worksheet should reveal the different evidence gaps; it does not dictate which opportunity is commercially preferable.
Record the next action, its owner, the requested evidence and the reason for proceeding or holding. Someone reading the record later should understand the resource decision without attending the sales meeting.
Review stalled and lost work
Compare the original assessment with what happened. Separate qualification gaps from later customer changes, competitive decisions and delivery constraints. Do not assume every loss proves the score was wrong or every win proves it was right.
Look for criteria that the team interprets differently. Revise the definitions before adding more weights or scoring fields.
Connect qualification to the design brief
When the opportunity proceeds, transfer the customer objective, evidence, assumptions and unresolved questions into the next brief. A score alone is not a design instruction.
Use the project handoff worksheet to make that transfer concrete. Before investing in a product evaluation, list the design and proposal outputs the qualified workflow actually requires and compare them using the software evaluation worksheet on the same page.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good commercial solar opportunity score?
There is no universal threshold established by this worksheet. Define the next investment decision, criteria and hold conditions for your business. Validate any threshold against consistent records and actual outcomes before relying on it.
Should missing information receive a zero?
Record unknown explicitly before deciding how the scoring method treats it. Missing evidence differs from confirmed poor fit. The action should reflect which decision is blocked and whether obtaining the information is worthwhile.
Can a score replace technical feasibility review?
No. A sales qualification score organizes the decision to invest further effort. It does not establish engineering feasibility, site suitability, utility acceptance, financial outcomes or authority approval.
Sources
Primary research and reference material used for this desk-research article.
Where this fits
This article is part of SurgePV's Solar Business & Operations hub, which works through the topic from first principles to the decisions a project team actually has to make.
