Finding the best opportunities for your solar projects is critical. Now more than ever, uncertainty lies in the future of the solar industry in terms of short-term growth. The passing of the Big Beautiful bill removed tax credits that made solar investment very attractive. In Q2 2025, the installed capacity of solar decreased by 28% year over year according to research by the Solar Energy Industries Association. Finding the best opportunities for your projects and making them count is now more challenging than ever. In this article I will discuss the long-term growth of solar, sources to find RFPs, how to craft a winning proposal, and the future potential of solar RFPs.
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Long Term Demand for Solar PV
Although short-term installations have fallen, the solar industry has experienced explosive growth over the last five years. Interconnection queues are heavily backlogged, and both commercial and residential solar projects continue to expand as customers seek lower energy bills and cleaner energy sources.
Competition has also increased, with many new solar developers and vendors entering the market.
So where do RFPs fit in? Over the past decade, the number of Solar Requests for Proposals has grown steadily. Utilities or corporations may conduct RFPs as a formal, competitive process to secure the best prices and projects. In some cases, utilities are even mandated to procure new projects through RFPs.
But where do you actually find the right RFP for solar?
Solar RFP Sources
There are several reliable places to look for solar RFP opportunities:
- Utility websites
- Procurement portals
- RFP search tools
- Google search
Let’s dive into each one.
Utility websites
Many U.S. utilities are required by their state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to post new RFPs on their websites. This is often the best place to start if you have a specific utility you want to do business with. The challenge: if you want to monitor many utilities, you’ll need to subscribe to each one and track notifications individually.
Procurement Portals
Some utilities use third-party procurement portals to share new RFPs. These are typically locked behind a login, but once you create a business profile, you can log in and access their RFP postings.
RFP Search Tools
RFP search tools crawl utility and corporate websites to find opportunities. For Utility and Renewable specific RFP search tools, check out Energy Adepto RFP search tools. For generic RFP search tools include BidPrime, BidNet Direct, and FindRFP.
Google Search
Sometimes an RFP is mentioned in an industry article or is indexed well enough to appear in search results. With the right keywords, you can uncover active RFPs for solar through Google. Try to narrow in on search terms by geography and timeline. For example, “Texas Solar RFP 2025”.
Solar RFP Database
Finding the right RFP database for Solar opportunities can help you save time and avoid the noise of too many RFP alerts. Some general RFP alert systems can get quite noisy if they are not filtered to the correct opportunities that you care about. Finding one that focuses on solar can help you save time and minimize distractions.
Finding the right RFP for your solar project
Once you’ve found several RFPs, which opportunity do you go all in on to maximize the potential win rate? Participating in an RFP and preparing a proposal for your solar project can be time consuming. You want to make sure your project stands out. That your pricing is competitive, and that you have done your homework to match up with the buyer’s energy and capacity requirements and scoring criteria. It’s critical to prioritize projects with the highest potential win rate.
Your proposal should:
- Stand out from competitors
- Offer competitive pricing
- Match the buyer’s energy/capacity requirements
- Align with the scoring criteria
Utility RFP Database
For broader utility opportunities, you can also look for utility RFP databases that track energy RFPs beyond just solar—such as wind, storage, and capacity projects. These tend to be more prominent than smaller IT, planning, or maintenance RFPs. Finding RFPs for services can be harder to find and are typically posted on individual utility sites or featured in RFP search tools.
How to write a solar proposal
To write an effective solar proposal, focus on four key areas to help you craft your unique selling point:
- Previous wins
- Pricing
- Structure
- Buyer
Previous wins
What worked in the past? Sounds obvious, but sometimes we try to re-invent the wheel too much. No need to re-invent the wheel every time. What worked in the past for your solar projects and go from there. Think about how structured your offers, what was attractive about your projects vs others. What can you take away from past wins that continue the success.
Pricing
Price plays a big factor for scoring. How do you know what pricing you need to stay competitive? There are several things you can do to make sure you have competitive pricing. You can look at Level Ten’s PPA pricing index to see where you stack up. In some cases for larger RFPs of surrounding Utilities, they might present some of the results in a range of prices received for stakeholder input and transparency. You could use these metrics to also see where you might fall.
Structure
Make your proposal easy for buyers to evaluate. The executive summary is critical. At the utility level, buyers often receive dozens of proposals. Your summary should clearly highlight:
- Proposal options (Project offered as a purchase, PPA, storage, different escalation offers)
- Project size and configurations
- Core metrics used for evaluation (ex. interconnection queue, permitting status, etc.)
Buyer
Think about the context of the buyer. What is their existing portfolio and how might your project fit in? What are the goals of their regulating body (Public Utilities Commission)? What are their financial incentives (ex. return on investment from invested capital)?
Tailor your proposal to the buyer’s goals and constraints:
- PUC requirements: low cost, clean energy targets
- Financial incentives: return on invested capital
- Risks: reliability impact, feasibility of timeline, cost predictability
Solar RFPs going forward…
As solar PV costs continue to decline, clean energy targets for 2030–2050 approach, and electricity demand grows (especially from AI-driven data centers), the importance of transparent, competitive procurement will increase.
Solar RFPs provide a great opportunity for you to find the best opportunities for your solar projects.
