Zenex Solar has launched a new finance arrangement for installers that it claims will help open up the elusive commercial-scale market.

The Zenex Partner Project (ZPP) sees the company use its size to guarantee end customer’s credit allowing smaller installers to take on bigger jobs.

“A lot of solar companies are fledgling companies and one thing that always hinders them is cashflow,” said Ryan Gill, director, Zenex Solar.

“A new customer will come to us a d they don’t’ have the background for us to get a credit limit for them which makes it difficult to trade with them. We identified that as a major barrier for our customers to grow and they identified it as a major barrier too.”

“If we have a customer that wants to do a 250kW system but they only have a £10,000 credit limit, they don’t have the means to facilitate that job. We’ll work with them and view the job as a project. We’ll work with the end user customer and for example, credit insure that end user under say an MCS payment schedule. Then we deliver all the goods and the installer can fit it.

The installer then invoices Zenex  for the job total, minus the cost of the goods and a commission for Zenex. This figure is effectively the profit the installer would have made if they had been able to fund the sale themselves, minus the Zenex commission.

“A lot of our customers are looking to get into commercial jobs, anything from 30kW-400kW. There’s a lot of commercial rooftop space out there. Our feeling, and also from talking to our customers they share it, is that it seems to be a market that is really opening up and will be a key target area for them,” said Gill.

The ZPP was launched just before Christmas with the first contract under the scheme, a 450kW commercial rooftop deal, set to be signed this week.