Commercial solar installation in northwest Montana
Electricity is an operating cost you cannot negotiate. Put the roof to work and it becomes one you own: a fixed cost per kilowatt-hour under the utility’s rate, year after year.
- Sizing
- Twelve months of your bills
- Equipment
- Enphase microinverters
- Loans
- AERLP, 100 employees or fewer
- Property tax
- $100,000 exempt
The bill for a shop or an office runs every day the doors are open, and Flathead Electric raised rates 5.5 percent in June 2026. A commercial array sized to a full year of what the building draws takes that line off the ledger. You produce the power at a fixed cost that does not rise, and once the system is paid off, it is free. The proposal shows the production numbers and the payback before you commit to anything.
The work is panels and Enphase microinverters, installed by one crew, and the utility interconnection paperwork sits on our desk until sign-off, so nobody from your office chases the utility. Your business keeps running while it happens. We have done it at full-roof scale: 78 panels on Nelson’s Ace Hardware in Whitefish, on a road roughly 21,000 vehicles pass every day. Labor and every piece of equipment carry a warranty, and every review Northstone has on Google is five stars.
Looking at a farm or ranch building instead? See our agricultural solar page for the financing details specific to that work.
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Full‑roof commercial arrays
Nelson’s Ace isn’t the only full-roof job on the books. This barn-style commercial building carries the same coverage, panels set edge to edge across the plane, and the same result: a building that makes its own power.
Loans, property tax, and commercial scale
- 3.5%
- Fixed rate on the state’s AERLP loan, up to $40,000 over as long as ten years, for a business with 100 or fewer employees. Windows open every quarter and the money runs short every quarter, so we tell you the next one and you file early.
- $100,000
- Of the appraised value a system adds to a non‑residential building, exempt from Montana property tax for ten years under MCA 15‑6‑224.
- 78
- Panels on Nelson’s Ace Hardware in Whitefish, a full‑roof array that ran through USDA REAP, on a road roughly 21,000 vehicles pass every day.
Sources: Montana DEQ, MCA 15-6-224, Daily Inter Lake, Whitefish Pilot, verified July 2026. Confirm your own tax situation with your tax professional.
Questions we get from businesses
- Can our business get a REAP grant?
- USDA paused new REAP grant awards on March 31, 2026, until new rules take effect; guaranteed REAP loans are still being made, and businesses in towns under 50,000 people qualify. We have taken projects through the program before, the 78‑panel array on Nelson’s Ace Hardware and the Better Beef ranch job, and we will again if the new rules keep solar eligible.
- We’re a small shop, not a ranch. What financing fits?
- The state’s AERLP loan covers businesses with 100 or fewer employees: 3.5% fixed, up to $40,000, terms to ten years. Applications open every quarter and the money runs short every quarter, so you file early in a window. Clearwater Credit Union’s solar loan is another route, and we have worked with Whitefish Credit Union and Glacier Bank. The bill you already pay the utility becomes the payment on something the business owns.
- What does a commercial array do to our property taxes?
- For ten years, up to $100,000 of the appraised value the system adds is exempt. Montana law sets that for non‑residential buildings (MCA 15‑6‑224), and you claim it with the Montana Department of Revenue. Confirm how it lands on your parcel with your tax professional.
- Have you built at commercial scale before?
- Yes. The 78 panels on Nelson’s Ace Hardware in Whitefish sit beside a road that roughly 21,000 vehicles pass every day. More than a hundred systems in northwest Montana since 2017, and every review on Google is five stars.
Send twelve months of the building’s bills and we will size it.
Book a free consultationOr call (406) 407-5218