Your Think+ business is now more rewarding than ever before! We’re thrilled to announce a significant upgrade to the Think+ Compensation Plan that will transform the way you earn on Think Community Solar customers.
This exciting announcement was shared by Think Energy CEO, Michael Fallquist on the September State of the Company Address along with the announcement of our next Think Community Solar markets: New Jersey & Maryland!
The replay of this event as well as all of the details for this compensation upgrade are available below.
Introducing New & Improved Think Community Solar CABs
At Think+, we’re always listening to feedback and suggestions from the Energy Advisor community. After thorough analysis and discussions with key Think+ leaders, it became clear that Think Community Solar could be even more rewarding if the small residual payments paid out over years were instead paid out through significantly higher upfront Customer Acquisition Bonuses (CABs).
As a result, we’re eliminating residual commissions on Think Community Solar Customers and instead significantly increasing the upfront Customer Acquisition Bonuses. CABs for Think Community Solar customers have been doubled for Tier 1 (Maine) and tripled for Tier 2 (New York)!
The charts below show the Think Community Solar CABs before this change in comparison to the upgraded CABs. In addition, the upline CABs have also increased accordingly and those new details are available in the updated Think+ Compensation Plan.
Personal & Mentor CABs Before Upgrade:
After Think Community Solar Compensation Upgrade:
In-Depth Compensation Upgrade Comparisons:
Evolution of our Think Community Solar Strategy
Beyond the obvious benefits of doubled and tripled upfront bonuses, there are additional reasons to transition Think Community Solar compensation to be paid upfront instead of residual commissions paid out over years. For these reasons, we are also updating the Think Community Solar strategy to improve the experience for Customers and Energy Advisors.
Think Community Solar currently provides two functions for community solar projects:
- Customer acquisition services
- Ongoing customer management
While our initial strategy focused on always providing both of these functions, there are a number of advantages to sometimes referring customers we’ve acquired to alternative community solar providers for the ongoing customer management.
By having the option to allocate customers we’ve acquired to other community solar providers, we can ensure that we have the maximum number of community solar projects and markets available to your customers.
While our preference is to continue to provide both customer acquisition services and ongoing customer management to ensure your customers have the best experience, there are significant advantages to having this alternative option:
Advantages of New Strategy:
- Customer Receive Savings Faster
- Shorter wait times for customers to begin receiving savings
- Open More Markets
- Enables access to more community solar markets
- Energy Advisors Get Paid Faster
- EA’s still get full value from the compensation plan but through upfront CAB’s rather than residual commissions paid over many years
What does this mean for current Think Community Solar Customers:
Maine – Tier 1
- CMP & Versant customers will be allocated as new solar projects come online in Maine.
New York – Tier 2
- New York Think Community Solar Customers will be allocated to community solar project owners where we will not provide the ongoing customer management
- NYSEG, RG&E & Central Hudson:
- Customer allocation to begin within 90 days
- More customers required to fill community solar capacity
- We expect to have community solar projects in excess of our current customer count within 90 days
- National Grid and Orange & Rockland
- Customers allocation to begin in early 2024
What does this mean for Energy Advisors:
Same compensation
Compensation received by Energy Advisors will be the same whether or not Think Community Solar provides the ongoing customer management
Residual Commissions for Think Community Solar Replaced with Higher CABs
Since we do not receive recurring payments for projects where we do not provide the ongoing customer management, it makes sense to replace residual commissions for community solar with increased upfront compensation.
Retroactive on existing Think Community Solar customers
Over $376,000 of additional CAB commissions are scheduled to be paid, at the time of Activation, to Energy Advisors for customers they’ve previously enrolled.
Customers will continue to count as PC & TC
For customers where we provide ongoing customer management, they will count as a PC & TC for as long as the customer remains on the project
For customers where we do not provide ongoing customer management, they will count as a PC & TC for 5 years
Upcoming Think Community Solar Expansion
Think Community Solar will soon be expanding into two exciting new markets: New Jersey & Maryland.
New Jersey
- Permanent Community Solar Program created in August 2023
- 30,000 Residential & LMI customers
- Customer Discount of 15-25%
- 50% Residential / 50% LMI
- Utility Consolidated Billing available in early 2025
- Customer enrollments to begin in November 2023 in PSE&G, JCPL & ACE
Maryland
- Permanent Community Solar Program created in May 2023, 50% renewable by 2030
- 100,000 residential and LMI customers
- Customers Discount 10% minimum
- 60% residential / 40% LMI
- Utility Consolidated Billing available in early 2025
- Customer enrollments to begin in December 2023
We look forward to sharing more details about these new markets as we get closer to launch. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy these Think Community Solar upgrades and as always, reach out to us at EASupport@thinkenergy.plus if you have any questions.
