A state grant covers 70–90% of the project. The application is scored on preparation, not spending — and most of the preparation is our work, not yours. Nothing on this page commits your district to anything.
The State of Minnesota pays a large share of the cost of putting solar on a school building. The application is two steps: a short scored one due September 11th, then a longer one in January that your chosen contractor completes. Many districts take the no-capital path — a company like ours owns the panels under a power purchase agreement, and the district simply buys the electricity. Whether that electricity costs less than what the utility charges depends on your district's need band and the installed cost we're quoted; we'll show you your own numbers before you commit to anything. If bond- or district-funded ownership pencils out better for your building, we can advise on that structure too, and either way our job is to advocate for the district's interests within whatever structure you choose. Your students get a live system to learn from, and you can stop at any point along the way.
If you read one thing on this page, read this. No solar knowledge required — it is a financing structure, and it behaves like one.
The 2026 round removed the old per-building dollar caps. The same 125 kW project is worth substantially more than it was last year — and the money is not being taken.
Type your district’s name. This runs the same grant chart, cumulative-cap tracking, GIS-verified territory data — and the same 96-point scoring rubric — we would use to prepare your memo by hand, covering all 327 Minnesota public school districts.
Figures run on the February 2026 grant chart, whose per-watt rates are unchanged, and on the certified 2025 ANTC/APU table Commerce published on August 10, 2026, which is what sets your need band. Round 2 posted on August 10, 2026 and the dates on this page come from that posting. Award history is still only through 2025: the posting did not include a grantee list, so the cap-headroom and existing-solar figures here rest on awards through 2025, and your business office may know of something more recent than we can see.
Selecting your district fills in its need band, territory verdict, prior grants, and cap headroom — and moves you on to what fits automatically. Nothing is shared, and asking costs you nothing.
Eight criteria, straight from the rubric. Every question opens on its most common, least-flattering answer — change anything below and the score recomputes instantly.
Free means sequencing decisions, one phone call, and one document — not work product. Most districts leave half of these on the table. The six moves, in order of points per effort:
One application scores 24 points. Two scores 18, three scores 12, four or more scores 6. Filing several at once costs your best project 18 points — a second building is a next-round option, not something to force into this one.
A free call with CERTs, the program's technical-assistance partner housed at the University of Minnesota Extension, verified with their staff, all-or-nothing. Book early — the calendar fills as the window closes.
The program requires a public RFP anyway, whatever the financing — including if you use the MN State Master Contract, which still requires posting an RFP rather than picking a name off its list. Committing early is free points for something you must do regardless — and it means nobody, including us, can be sole-sourced.
Scored on how well-founded the number is: metered use, a production model for your specific roof, the legal limits checked. Size is locked once submitted. This is the piece we do for you, at no cost and no obligation. One open item: full marks above 40 kWac also call for a signed utility letter, and no Xcel template exists yet — a documented utility conversation is what scores today. We have the question in front of both Commerce and Xcel.
Six points each. District-level plans are acceptable — which matters when teachers are away in August — and an existing STEM or environmental club is strong evidence. CERTs supplies curriculum material free.
Four tiers: cut your ask 10% or more for 12 points, up to 10% for 8, up to 5% for 4 (about $12,600 on a $252,000 grant), nothing for 0. Usually not worth it — a well-prepared district reaches the mid-80s without touching this. The exception is a district-owned or bond-funded project, where the trade is the district's own capital against 4–12 points; in a project we own under a PPA, a reduction instead lowers our cost basis and shows up in the PPA rate. Either way, worth weighing case by case, not a flat yes or no.
No solar of any kind: 12 points. Existing solar or a community-solar subscription: 6. A prior Solar for Schools grant: 0 — and prior awards also count against your district's cumulative cap, which is $675,000 in Xcel territory and $500,000 elsewhere (with systems outside Xcel territory statutorily capped at 40 kWac absent written utility consent). If you have had a grant before, or are unsure, ask us to check your remaining cap.
Submitting on the first day scores exactly the same as the last, so September 11th is the target, not a deadline to beat. Two items take real calendar time no matter what: the CERTs booking and your business office exporting two years of usage figures. Districts that miss this window almost never miss it on paperwork — they miss it waiting on someone else.
Opens the same tool used above, on the scoring step — eight questions, straight from the rubric, recomputed instantly as you answer.
Email Commerce for a Project ID — free, permanent, never expires — and ask your business office to start the two-year usage export. Both sit on someone else's queue, which is exactly why they go first.
Book the CERTs consultation and send us one recent bill. We build the production model and the size determination for your roof.
Hold the CERTs call. We draft the curriculum and engagement plans from your input.
Full package sent to you for review. Authorized representative signs — superintendent or business manager; no board resolution for a standard application.
This week should be slack, not work. The district submits in Commerce's portal — we assemble everything, you press submit.
Secured funding, a signed contract with any developer, a filed interconnection application, construction-ready engineering, or a site visit. Commerce is scoring readiness to seek proposals, not a finished project. The interconnection application is filed after award, well after your district has chosen a developer through its own procurement.
If a third party owns the array, the district signs a roof lease and a power purchase agreement. Around those sit board approval, notarized execution, a recorded memorandum of lease, a title check, lender consent if there is a mortgage, and — worth one early call — a bond counsel check if the building was financed with tax-exempt bonds. We handle drafting, recording, and permits; you provide the board slot, the signatory, and that early bond-counsel conversation.
Under a power purchase agreement, no capital — you buy electricity at an agreed rate. Staff time is realistically a few hours across August, mostly the business office pulling usage data.
Whoever owns the system. That is the single most useful thing to understand about this program, and it is why the same grant supports two very different deals. Under a power purchase agreement the third-party owner funds that balance and the district contributes no capital at all. Under district ownership the district funds it — from cash, a capital levy, bond proceeds, or a municipal cost-share program if your city runs one — and in exchange keeps the full value of everything the system produces for its life. The grant itself is identical in both cases, the district is the grantee in both cases, and the September 11th application scores identically either way. You do not have to choose now.
That works too, and it captures more long-term value since you are not paying anyone else's return. Direct ownership — cash or bond-financed — is a fully contemplated path in the program's own paperwork, and we can size, spec, and manage that build the same way. The September 11th application asks the same questions either way.
Ask it both directions and we'll answer both. A roof replaced recently is the best case, not a complication: no tear-off risk mid-contract, and the array's life lines up with the membrane's remaining life. A roof in the 20–30 year range needing replacement soon is workable too, but the sequencing matters — best when the district replaces before or alongside the install, more expensive if it lands mid-contract. A roof past 30 years with no record either way just means we ask. Tell us the age and condition of the roof under any building you want us to size, and we design around your actual schedule rather than against it.
The contract sets it out: buy the system at fair market value, extend, or have it removed at the owner's cost — removal and recycling are a grant requirement, not a promise. A district buyout option becomes available starting in year six, at fair market value at the time — trading the per-kWh payment for outright ownership of an asset that keeps producing power. Whether and when to exercise it is the district's call to make against its own numbers.
Under a PPA you pay per kWh delivered, so underproduction costs the owner, not you. That is the point of the structure.
Not accurately. In Xcel territory, Minnesota law assigns the renewable energy credits to Xcel for the life of the system, and the credits carry the claim. What you can accurately say: "We supply solar to our utility so it can meet its renewable energy goals." If the board wants the stronger claim, replacement credits can be bought separately and inexpensively. We would rather tell you this now than after the ribbon-cutting.
Nothing happens. The program runs to 2032 and your Project ID carries forward. This round is a good one because it has been under-subscribed, but missing it is not fatal.
Said at the top of this page and worth repeating: if your district runs an RFP, we plan to bid it — disclosed up front, held to the same standard as every other bidder, never sole-sourced. Nobody is paying us for the sizing analysis: not you, not the Department of Commerce, not a manufacturer.
DownEast Renewable Energy — Connecticut-headquartered, operating in seven states, school solar delivered in Connecticut and not yet Minnesota. You owe us nothing at any point in Step 1. If you take this page to another developer, that is a fair use of it.
If the arithmetic on your building does not clear, we will say so and stop, and you keep the analysis. The program runs to 2032 and your Project ID never expires. "Not this round" is a perfectly good answer.