The solar industry is booming, and tons of sites are cropping up to provide useful information on manufacturers, installation, and everything else related to solar. Despite the information being out there, it isn’t always organized to be useful to installers.
While interest in solar energy isn’t as niche as it used to be, it still might seem difficult to find a community of like-minded people and other solar professionals to bounce ideas off, learn from, and build friendships with. This is why we put together this master list of the most useful resources and forums for solar installers.
The Most Useful Solar Resources
From pages on established social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit, to specialty forums created specifically to discuss solar and other renewable technologies, you’ll find all you need to network and chat with fellow solar installers below.
Dedicated Solar Energy Forums
Let’s start off strong with forums created for and maintained by solar professionals and enthusiasts alike. Here, you’ll find in-depth discussions about everything solar energy and beyond and discussions on installation techniques and new technologies in the solar space.
Northern Arizona Wind & Sun Solar Forum
This forum bills itself as “An Online Community For Discussing Solar Power, Wind Power, And Other Forms Of Renewable And Alternative Energy.”. The Northern Arizona Wind & Sun Solar Forum is a great resource for everything to do with NEC, wiring, installation, and all other aspects of solar installation.
Not from Arizona? You’ll still find tons of great content here with forum categories like “Solar Skeptics, Hype, & Scams Corner”, “Solar Product Reviews & Opinions”, and “Solar Beginners Corner” set up to foster conversation about the solar industry as a whole.
This forum has been operational for a long time and likely has the answer to any question you may have about solar panels. It’s still extremely active, with multiple new posts and conversations happening every day.
Solar Panel Talk
Solar Panel Talk has everything you need to know about solar panels. It’s a great technical resource to ask all your installation questions and consult with a huge community. This forum offers categories including “Off-Grid Solar”, “Solar Companies”, and “Solar Panel System Equipment” to foster discussion about every aspect of solar power.
Ask some of your burning questions here, or jump in and help a homeowner or newbie installer answer some of their own. The Solar Panel Talk forum is very active, and you’ll likely get a response from someone within minutes of posting.
EcoRenovator
Nestled inside a blog all about making homes greener, EcoRenovator is a DIY-focused site providing people with resources to help them make their homes more eco-friendly, including tips to help them install solar on their own homes.
While this forum has a more generalized, renewable energy-focused theme, there are still solar energy-related subcategories such as “Solar Energy”, “Solar Heating”, and “Solar Storage” to explore. As a solar professional, you could create some strong goodwill by sharing tips and tricks with homeowners-in-need. Who knows, maybe a few will turn into sales!
Electrician’s Forums – The Solar PV Forum
Based in the United Kingdom but serving an international audience, The Solar PV Forum is a separate forum nestled within a larger community of electricians looking to learn about and discuss solar panels.
This community’s tagline states that it is for “all questions relating to Photovoltaic & Solar Panels in this forum, including feed-in tariffs, inverters, panels, calculations, schematics, installation, maintenance & fault finding.” and even offers a directory of solar installers that you can apply to have your solar company listed on.
DIY Solar Power Forum
This forum caters to the DIYer looking for tips, tricks, and advice about installing their own solar systems themselves. While, as a solar installer, the conversations here might not seem relevant to you on the surface, but you can jump in here and offer up your expertise.
With topics like “Up in smoke… learn from my mistake!” and “Danger Zone! (Advanced User Experiments Only)”, you can use this space to set yourself up as an expert in the field and maybe offer up your services to those who might seem in a little over their heads.
Green Building Advisor
Like EcoRenovator, and billed as “the complete source for building, designing, and remodeling green homes”, the Green Building Advisor forum hosts a community of people looking to “greenify” their homes with everything from solar PV to rainwater collection.
Here you’ll be able to get an idea about what eco-friendly homeowners are interested in and help them out with the solar aspect of their green building projects. Just search for “solar” to pull up a full list of questions in need of answers about solar PV and storage.
Power Forum
Hosted in South Africa but serving a global audience, Power Forum offers discussions about all kinds of power generation, with the top topic being solar energy. Here you’ll find a specific subforum all about Solar Energy where you’ll be able to chat with other professionals and interested homeowners and DIYers alike about topics such as “PV array calculations,” “adding panels to a system,” and “is this a good deal?”.
Facebook Groups For Solar Installers and Salespeople
Facebook isn’t just for keeping in touch with friends and family anymore. It’s also a great place to join groups catering to your interests and career. Here are some of the best Facebook groups that deal with all things solar energy.
Solar Installers
Boasting over 15k members and over 10 new posts a day. This is the definitive Facebook group for solar installers to gather and talk shop. Talk about lead generation, new product releases, and get tips and tricks from your peers here.
Solar Power + Battery Energy Storage & Electric Vehicles (PV + BES & EV)
This group fosters discussion all about everything solar power and storage. With over 30k members, you’ll have no problem finding interesting conversations and people to chat with about solar and storage technology.
Get a peek at other professionals’ installations, get caught up on industry news, and chat with homeowners looking for advice about solar here.
Solar Pros
This Facebook group is billed as a place for like-minded solar professionals to gather, share information, and teach each other everything they know about selling more solar and growing their businesses.
With 6k members, Solar Pros is smaller than the others on this list, but it is also more tight-knit than the rest, which you might see as a benefit.
SOLAR WIRING & INSTALLATION
This 53k member group focuses on the installation side of solar PV and dips into the realm of DIY as well. Here you’ll find some industry news, new product spotlights, and posts from fellow installers highlighting their installation work and skills. This is an international group where you’ll also get a glimpse at what’s going on in the global solar market.
Solar Leads Market Place
This group is, well, you guessed it – a marketplace for solar leads. Here you’ll find an active community of people sharing lead generation tips and tricks, reviews of lead generation companies, and CRM software recommendations. People also use this group as a job marketplace and a place to find marketing agencies to help them grow their businesses.
Solar Objections
Solar Objections is yet another group whose name gives itself away. With a description reading “This will be a community where iron sharpens iron and we work together to improve each other’s skills so that we can help homeowners make the best decision for themselves and their homes.”, you’ll find many great conversations all about solar sales.
You’ll also watch the solar sales community discuss answers to strange and uncommon sales objections and questions from homeowners such as “what happens to my system if I die?”, and “what happens if I co-own a house with someone who doesn’t want to co-sign the solar contract?”.
LinkedIn Groups for Solar Contractors and Salespeople
As one of the best places on the web to make professional connections, LinkedIn also has tons of groups for solar professionals to meet and talk about the solar industry, policy, and technology. Here are a few of the best groups on LinkedIn for solar professionals.
Solar Energy Network
One of the largest solar-related groups on LinkedIn, Solar Energy Network caters to anyone working in the solar industry, whether in solar PV, solar thermal, manufacturing, distribution or even solar software.
Here, you’ll find links to webinars, conferences, and other industry events. You’ll learn from the biggest players in the industry, and stay up-to-date on all the latest solar industry news. This group is also a great place to keep tabs on your competitors without having to seek them out yourself.
Renewable Energy World
Joining both Solar Energy Network and Renewable Energy World is a great way to get the big picture about what is going on in the world of renewable energy as a whole. The group’s description reads: “Join the Renewable Energy World group to network with industry professionals and people interested in renewable energy or anyone wanting to join the renewable energy (r)evolution.”
Here you’ll get the big picture of where solar energy stands next to other renewable energy sources like wind and hydropower.
Renewables and Environment: Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Green Business
This is yet another group created to foster discussion about renewable energy and green businesses such as solar power, wind power, hydroelectricity, biomass, biofuels, and ocean power through an environmental impact lens.
Join this group to learn about new renewable technology, meet others in similar industries to your own, and read all the latest news in the green energy space.
The Solar Energy Professionals Network
This group’s description speaks for itself: “The goal of this group is to provide a forum for talented solar professionals to connect and discuss all aspects of the solar energy industry. We endeavor to create an active online community where solar professionals discuss their ideas about current issues in the solar industry, share their experiences working in the solar energy sector, seek and provide advice about building a solar career, and keep up to date on technological advancements and developments in the solar energy industry.”
You’ll also be able to use this space as a job board to either list open positions at your company or look for a new job yourself with the board’s own dedicated recruitment portal.
Residential Solar: Sales and Marketing
This group is a place dedicated to sharing tips and tricks for solar marketing and sales. Learn what has worked and failed from others’ experiences, and share your own to help others make sales and install more solar power.
Subreddits for Solar Installers and Renewable Energy Aficionados
As many already know, if it exists, there’s likely a subreddit about it. Here is every page on Reddit where you’ll find other solar professionals and fans of the technology chatting about the industry.
/r/Solar
The biggest solar energy community on Reddit can be found here. This community fosters “discussion of solar photovoltaic systems, modules, the solar energy business, solar power production, utility-scale, commercial rooftop, residential, off-grid systems and more.”, and you’ll find everything from posts from other solar installers to homeowners looking for advice from the pros.
Top posts include a timelapse video of a massive solar carport installation, a post about an exciting solar canal project in India, and information about California’s plans to make unwelcome changes to Net Metering (NEM 3.0).
/r/SolarInstallers
More installer-focused than /r/solar, this community fosters discussions between solar installers where they can share their experiences, host AMAs (Ask Me Anything), and, share solar industry memes and jokes. You’ll find a lot of posts from new installers looking to get into the industry here, as well as some tips from seasoned veterans.
/r/RenewableEnergy
Closing out the trifecta of essential industry subreddits is the Renewable Energy community. While you’ll find posts here from many different industries in the renewable energy sector, this subreddit is often dominated by solar energy news.
Top posts here include “US renewable energy industry cheers Joe Biden election win as ‘beautiful day’”, and “New polling shows that Gen Z wants jobs in solar and wind energy, not coal and natural gas”.
Are you a member of a great online solar community that isn’t on this list? Share it with us in the comments below!