Even the most advanced solar and energy storage modeling tools can’t replace human expertise. That expertise is what gives meaning to every assumption, rate, dispatch strategy, and load profile when modeling a defensible project for your client. As projects grow in complexity, teams often reach a point where software alone can’t account for real-world conditions, complex rate structures, or evolving incentive programs.

That’s where ETB Consulting comes in, aligning what software predicts through detailed modeling with how systems actually perform. ETB Consulting adds hands-on analysis, validation, and optimization that help developers, EPCs, and asset owners move from accurate modeling to accurate project results.

When Is a Modeling Tool Enough and When Do You Need Expert Support?

The margin for error when modeling projects is small, and getting every assumption right matters.

Software and consulting each play distinct roles, and the right balance depends on project complexity, development stage, and internal expertise. A strong modeling platform provides the foundation for efficiency and repeatability, allowing teams to test assumptions, run comparative scenarios, and evaluate system performance without extensive manual analysis. Software delivers speed, scalability, and transparency, which is especially valuable for standard project types, but not every organization has a dedicated modeling or analytics team, nor the deep expertise required that spans across every utility territory and incentive program. Consulting helps bridge the gap between accurate modeling and real-world market conditions, ensuring financial assumptions, rate analyses, and dispatch strategies hold up during performance.

Where do Tools Excel?

Tariff and rate structure modeling: Time-of-use periods, seasonal shifts, and demand charges can dramatically alter project economics. ETB Developer allows users to compare rate schedules, simulate rate switches (for example, from TOU-8D to TOU-8E), and assess outcomes across structures to pinpoint optimal configurations. Backed by a database of 100,000+ active global utility rate schedules across 2,000+ U.S. utility territories, the platform reflects the latest tariff updates within days of release. Energy Toolbase’s in-house rates team tracks and updates tariffs to ensure all ETB Consulting projects use current data. Teams can also request custom rate creation or work directly with ETB Consulting to replicate complex tariffs, model emerging rate structures, and validate assumptions precisely.

System sizing and dispatch testing: Teams can simulate a range of solar PV and battery storage configurations, inverter load ratios, and dispatch strategies, whether optimizing for time-of-use arbitrage, demand charge management, or participation in demand response events.

Financial transparency: Modern tools automatically generate detailed pro formas, project cash flows, and performance summaries with clear underlying assumptions, making it easier to communicate ROI and risk to stakeholders.

Integration with controls: When paired with an energy management system (EMS), such as ETB Controller, modeled dispatch strategies can be executed seamlessly in the field, ensuring on-screen optimizations translate to real-world operation. For projects with straightforward configurations, single meters, standard rate schedules, or conventional interconnections, software alone can often take you from opportunity to proposal efficiently and accurately.

When Do Projects Benefit from Consulting Expertise?

Pre-design analysis: Projects spanning multiple utility territories or involving nonstandard interconnections often need deeper rate and tariff evaluation. ETB Consulting provides pre-design analysis to identify favorable rate schedules, analyze demand structures, and validate utility cost assumptions before projects move to design and construction, ensuring proposals reflect accurate financial conditions from the start. Many rate schedules include demand ratchets, riders, or seasonal adjustments that can dramatically shift savings. In markets with time-based export credits, accurate export compensation modeling is especially important.

Regulatory and program compliance: Participating in demand response, grid services, net metering, and other programs need a detailed understanding of eligibility, reporting, and incentive structures. ETB Consulting provides expertise in NEM applications, incentive qualification, and policy compliance to help teams meet requirements and avoid costly delays.

High-stakes economics and quality assurance: When project success depends on multiple value streams, consulting adds a layer of risk management. ETB Consulting acts as a second set of eyes, validating inputs, verifying rates, and stress-testing assumptions to safeguard financial accuracy and credibility across project stages. By combining ETB Developer’s analytical capabilities with ETB Consulting’s expert validation, teams achieve greater consistency across every phase, from early screening through pre-execution review.

How Does ETB Consulting Elevate Project Results?

Each engagement begins with site load and tariff optimization, where our consultants evaluate energy consumption and both current and future rate options to quantify savings under current and prospective rates. The team then conducts detailed solar and energy storage system sizing using interval data and load profiles to ensure configurations are technically and financially sound. ETB Consulting also specializes in energy storage system revenue modeling, incorporating programs such as demand response, export compensation, and aggregator participation to quantify every value stream accurately. Results are compiled into investor-grade financial pro formas and personalized customer proposals that clearly communicate project performance.

What distinguishes ETB Consulting is its depth of experience, precision in replicating complex tariffs and billing logic, and commitment to tracking evolving net metering and export compensation policies, ensuring that modeled savings reflect how utilities will bill customers. This expertise is especially valuable for projects involving stacked value streams, such as grid services or incentive participation, where financial accuracy and compliance are critical.

ETB Consulting provides rigor and market expertise, while ETB Developer offers speed, scalability, and control as projects advance. Paired, they create bankable, defensible proposals supported by both technical precision and real-world validation. The result is a more efficient project workflow, stronger stakeholder confidence, and optimized outcomes that maximize ROI, especially for projects with longer development cycles or integrated storage systems.

Connect with our ETB Consulting team to review your next solar and storage proposal, or start modeling in ETB Developer today!