THE COMMUTER TARIFF IS REAL: the Northdown evening rate is triple the midday one, and a carport charges the car at noon for the drive you make at six. We model your tariff against your commute before we quote — the payback line rides on page one of the proposal, not page six.
Rates, printed
The carport card
Engineering, foundations, permits, interconnection and the ten-year workmanship warranty sit inside every number — the federal credit comes off afterwards. Which canopy your bay earns is decided by the shadow study at the free survey, never by how the conversation went.
Installed, structure to switch
Single-bay carport · 7.2 kW$19,900
Two-car steel canopy, twelve bifacial modules, snow and wind rated
Double-bay carport · 14.4 kW$34,600
Four-car canopy on one frame — the sweet spot of steel per watt
Fleet canopy · from 40 kW$2.62 / watt
Commercial columns at scale, snow-sliding geometry engineered in
EV charger, fitted to the post$1,850
7.6 kW level 2 on the canopy’s own circuit, scheduled by the app
Battery in the column · 13.5 kWh$11,400
Charges from the canopy by day; runs the car and the kitchen at tariff
The albedo upgrade$2.10 / sq ft
Pale seal on the slab beneath — buys back most of its cost in kilowatt-hours
How it goes
Bay to breaker in five weeks
The shadow study
Drone flight over the kerb line, horizon trace of every street tree and gable, production modelled hour by hour against your tariff and your commute. Free, yours to keep, and valid ammunition against any canopy quote in the belt.
Engineering & permits
The canopy is a structure, so it is engineered like one: point loads, wind uplift, snow-sliding geometry, then the building permit and the interconnection filing. You sign twice in the whole project; every milestone date rides between the two.
Anchors & erection
Bolted bases into engineered footings, columns up, beams squared, modules clamped — two days for a house canopy, a week for a fleet. The driveway stays usable the entire time except the footing day itself.
Commission & handover
Inverter live, charger paired, tariff scheduling set so the car drinks midday sun for the six-o’clock drive, and the monitoring app on your phone before the crew leaves. The warranty card names the crew lead by name.
The bifacial case
Why the underside matters
A rooftop array sees the sky and that is all it ever sees. A canopy sees the sky AND the slab beneath it — bifacial glass collects the bounced light too, and a pale concrete drive reflects enough of it to add six to nine percent across a season. We pour nothing, but we will seal your existing slab pale for a couple of dollars a foot, and the albedo line on the card repays itself in roughly four years of kilowatt-hours. It is the closest thing to free production in the industry, and only a canopy can buy it.
The structure outlives the electronics
The steel canopy is warranted twenty-five years and galvanised for fifty; the modules carry thirty-year production guarantees; the inverter is the one part that will be replaced, once, around year fourteen, and the card prices that morning in advance so it never surprises you.
The Crossing & the belt, 2025 — 2026
Canopies standing today
Six carports from last season’s builds, photographed at interconnection. House canopies, a fleet row and the shop’s own — the captions carry the kilowatts and the commute they fuel.
Before you call
Fair questions, answered at the kerb
The five every commuter belt driveway asks. The shop line below runs seven to six; the survey calendar usually has a slot inside the week.
Is the bifacial gain real or marketing?
It is real, measurable, and conditional: pale surfaces bounce, dark ones swallow. On a light concrete slab we model six to nine percent across a season and print the model in the proposal; over grass or fresh asphalt the honest number is two to three and we print that instead. The monitoring app shows both faces’ contribution separately, so you can audit us from the kitchen.
What does a carport do in snow and wind?
Better than a roof, because it is engineered as a canopy from the first drawing: steeper tilt so snow slides off the open back edge instead of piling behind a ridge, uplift calculations on every anchor, and drift lines checked against the belt’s worst February on record. The house roof keeps its warranty untouched — the canopy carries its own loads to its own footings.
Can it charge two cars?
The double-bay canopy runs two chargers on its own circuit, load-managed so both cars share the afternoon intelligently; a single-bay runs one now and has the conduit sleeved for a second, so adding the household’s next car is a half-day and not a re-permit.
What if I move house?
The canopy unbolts. The footings stay as handsome concrete pads or are broken out in a morning; the modules, inverter and charger move to the new address and we re-permit and re-commission at a fixed $2,400. Try that with a roof array and the hole pattern it leaves in twenty-year shingles.
How does the payback actually run?
The model uses your tariff, not a national average: midday production against the evening commute rate, the charger’s schedule doing the arbitrage. Median belt household lands at 8 to 11 years with the federal credit applied, and the proposal’s page one carries the line — if your shade or tariff pushes it past fifteen, we will say so and quote the shadow study as the product instead.
I used to plan Thursdays around the charger queue at the filling station. Now the car greets me at six o’clock with a full battery the canopy filled at noon, off the same sunshine that was cooking the interior. The dog approves of the shaded loading too, which no spreadsheet predicted.
The practice needed shade for patient cars and a story for the waiting room; the canopy gave us both plus a bill a third smaller. The crew worked around clinic hours the whole week and the lead shook every hygienist’s hand on the last day. That part was not in the proposal either.
Sixty-two kilowatts over the depot with a charger in every column. The trucks leave at five on power that landed at noon, the drivers stopped queuing, and the shadow study they ran first predicted the production within two percent through the first year. The accounts department framed page one.
Nine seasons of canopies
The belt, in figures
Shadow studies free across the belt, most flown inside the week · (555) 321-7746 · bays@coachroofsolar.example
Park the car. Park the bill.
Two cars, a commute and a rough tariff are enough for the model — the flight happens inside the week and the fixed quote lands with the payback year on page one. bays@coachroofsolar.example