The Participate integration is currently in beta and available to a limited group of customers. Features and availability may change during the beta. To request access, contact your Aurora Account Manager.
Aurora's integration with Participate Energy lets your reps quote a Participate prepaid lease directly in Sales Mode. Once the integration is configured, Aurora automatically checks a project's incentive eligibility with Participate and applies the resulting lease pricing to the proposal — no external calculator and no manual data entry.
This article covers the one-time setup an account admin completes before reps can use the integration. For the rep workflow, see How to use the Participate Energy integration in Sales Mode.
In this article
- What is a Participate prepaid lease?
- How the integration works
- Before you begin
- Step 1: Activate the Participate Energy integration
- Step 2: Enable financing products for Participate
- Step 3: Enable components from Participate's AVL
- FAQs
What is a Participate prepaid lease?
Prepaid lease: a third-party ownership (TPO) structure in which the provider owns the system, claims the commercial (48E) tax credit and any bonus incentives, and offers an upfront discount to the homeowner based on various factors. The homeowner pays the lease price upfront, instead of making monthly lease payments.
Participate Energy owns the system for the initial period of the lease and offers the homeowner a buyout option as early as year 6. The homeowner can pay the prepaid lease amount in cash or finance it through an approved lender.
How the integration works
Aurora sends project and system details to Participate to retrieve lease pricing and applies the result to the financing on your design. Participate does not send products, statuses, or documents back into Aurora.
When a rep selects Participate Energy for a design, Aurora automatically:
- Checks whether the project's address is located in an energy community.
- Checks whether the design's panels and battery are eligible for the domestic content bonus — Participate evaluates each component in the design.
- Requests a lease estimate from Participate using your eligible system cost and the eligibility results from the first two checks.
Participate returns a lease factor that determines the homeowner's discounted prepaid lease price. Because eligibility affects the lease factor, the same system price can produce different lease pricing on different projects.
Note: Every component in the design must be on Participate’s approved vendor list (AVL) – if the design includes a component Participate doesn’t recognize, the lease estimate returns an error.
Before you begin
- You are an approved Participate Energy partner. The integration retrieves pricing using your Participate account, so your organization must be onboarded with Participate first. To join their installer network, contact Participate Energy directly.
- You have Admin access in Aurora to enable the integration. Only account admins can activate integrations and manage financing products.
- You have your Participate Energy API key. Participate provides this key when your partnership is activated. Reach out to your Participate contact if you do not have it.
- You have at least one residential cash or loan financing product to pair with Participate. Homeowners can pay the prepaid lease amount in cash or finance it through an approved lender, so most installers also set up a matching loan product. See How to set up prepaid TPO financing for how to model the common lender structures.
- Participate serves projects in a limited set of states. Availability is determined by Participate and may change — check this page or ask your Participate contact to confirm current state coverage before quoting.
Step 1: Activate the Participate Energy integration
- Go to Settings > Financing integrations.
- Click +Add in the upper right and select Participate Energy from the dropdown menu.
- Enter your Participate Energy API key. The key is masked after you enter it.
- Use the Assign to dropdown to make the integration available to specific Partners or to non-Partner users. See Assigning Custom & Integrated Financing Products to Partners to learn more.
- Click Submit to save. Participate Energy now appears in your list of financing integrations.
Step 2: Enable financing products for Participate
The products that users see under Participate Energy in Sales Mode are your own financing products — Aurora does not pull a product list from Participate. A product does not appear under Participate Energy until you enable it for the integration.
- Go to Database > Financing.
- On the Products tab, select the financing product you want to offer with Participate, then click Edit.
- Scroll down to TPO availability and check the box for Participate Energy.
- Click Save. Repeat for each product you want reps to be able to select with Participate.
Note: Participate prepaid leases apply to residential projects only — commercial financing products cannot be enabled for Participate. To organize your products under named lenders in the Sales Mode dropdown, see How to create and manage custom financiers.
Step 3: Enable components from Participate's AVL
Participate only prices designs built from components on its approved vendor list (AVL) — the lease estimate returns an error if a design includes a component Participate doesn’t recognize.
In the component database, Aurora will show which components are included on Participate’s AVL, but you need to enable the component before it's available for users in the Sales Mode and Design Mode component dropdowns. See New Feature: AVL Component Selection for TPO Financiers for how AVL tabs work.
- Go to Database and select a component type under Components (for example, Modules).
- Search for the component model you want to enable.
- Use the AVL column to see which financier AVLs each component is on — components on Participate’s AVL show Participate Energy.
- Turn the toggle ON in the Enabled column to make the component available to your team for their designs.
Make sure at least one panel from Participate’s AVL is enabled. If nothing is enabled, the Participate Energy tab will be empty and reps won’t be able to build designs Participate can price. If a component you believe is on Participate’s AVL doesn’t show a Participate Energy row, contact Aurora Support.
Enabled components from Participate’s AVL will be visible on Participate’s AVL tab by default. To change this, follow the steps below:
- Select a component to open the Edit component panel.
- Under Approved vendor list (AVL), uncheck Show on AVL in the Participate Energy row.
- Click Save.
Tagging domestic content (optional)
Aurora doesn’t determine whether a component meets domestic content criteria — Participate makes that determination when it prices the lease. To make qualifying components easier for reps to spot while designing, you can tag them yourself: in the Edit component panel, check Meets domestic content criteria in the Participate Energy row. This tag is a label for your team — it doesn’t change Participate’s eligibility determination.
FAQs
Do I need to be a Participate Energy partner to use the integration?
Yes. The integration retrieves lease pricing through your Participate account. If your organization is not yet a Participate partner, contact Participate Energy to get started.
Which financing products can I enable for Participate?
Residential financing products that you create and maintain in Aurora that are willing to finance a prepaid lease. Commercial products cannot be used with Participate. Many installers pair Participate with a loan from an approved lender so homeowners can finance the prepaid amount. See How to set up prepaid TPO financing.
Does Aurora get a quote from Participate using my project data?
Only when a rep selects Participate Energy for a design. At that point Aurora sends the project and system details Participate needs to price the lease — the address-based energy community check, component eligibility, system type, and eligible system cost. Nothing syncs back from Participate into Aurora.
Does Aurora determine domestic content eligibility?
No. Participate determines eligibility for each component when it prices the lease. The Meets domestic content criteria tags in the component database are labels you maintain to help reps choose qualifying components — they don’t affect Participate’s determination.
How is this different from the manual prepaid TPO setup?
Without the integration, you calculate the discounted price in the provider’s external calculator and enter it into Aurora by hand. With the integration, Aurora retrieves the discount from Participate automatically and keeps it in sync with the design. The manual approach in How to set up prepaid TPO financing still applies to prepaid TPO providers Aurora has not integrated with.
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