Paul Grana, Founder of Helioscope, Sales & Design Software for Commercial Solar | EP167

Clean Power Hour

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There are a few tools in the solar installer’s tool belt that are truly indispensable. Helioscope is one of those tools that are game changing especially for commercial solar installers and developers. Today on the Clean Power Hour, Tim Montague is joined by Paul Grana, co-founder and GM of Helioscope, to tell the story of Helioscope from inception to acquisition in 2019 by Aurora Solar.
Grana started his clean energy journey in hardware, working for startups like Tigo (see EP120 for more about Tigo). Seeing inefficiencies in solar design workflows inspired him to build Helioscope in 2015.
Helioscope provides solar installers an intuitive cloud-based design platform that reduces design costs by 90%. By streamlining solar design and sales, Helioscope cuts soft costs and accelerates project development. Grana explains how Helioscope optimizes the entire customer journey from proposal to permitting.
In 2019, Helioscope was acquired by Aurora Solar. This happened because Helioscope was being courted by another suitor and Grana noticed that Aurora did a big capital raise which inspired him to reach out and see if they could do a deal which then happened in a matter of weeks.
Now under Aurora, Helioscope continues innovating solar design through merged capabilities. Grana discusses the future integration of the platforms, while maintaining differences where needed. He emphasizes their focus on user needs to determine shared logins, billing and more.
Grana sees huge potential to further reduce costs through software innovation as solar scales exponentially. By making solar design accessible, collaborative and fast, Helioscope aims to deliver solar energy at the terawatt scale.

Key Takeaways

1. How did Paul Grana transition from solar hardware to realizing major software inefficiencies?
2. Why was Helioscope founded and how does it streamline solar design?
3. What are the unique benefits of Helioscope for commercial and residential solar?
4. How did Helioscope come to be acquired by Aurora Solar?
5. What is the future outlook for integration between Helioscope and Aurora while still meeting user needs?

Paul Grana
Helioscope

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