De-risking distributed solar: Foundations are a critical bottleneck

This problem is pressing in ways we’ve never seen. U.S. commercial solar set new records last year, adding 2.3 GW of new capacity (up 6% from 2024). The usual suspects like California, Illinois, and New York continue to see solar expansion, while emerging markets in Pennsylvania and Texas drive new growth. EPC overhead costs, permitting, logistics, and miscellaneous costs rose an average of 30% year-over-year in the first half of 2025 alone. But at the same time, labor availability remains constrained across the distributed segments, with developers and asset owners consistently citing limited EPC capacity as a major impediment to further growth.

For DG sites in particular, where schedules are compressed and margins are tighter than in utility-scale developments, delays at the foundation stage can have outsized consequences. While modules, inverters, and racking have benefited from standardization, foundations remain highly variable and often underestimated.

Foundations

Foundations sit at the start of construction, and can ultimately determine whether a project stays on schedule. Yet, they are often treated as a commodity.

DG projects are especially vulnerable. Smaller scale, variable site conditions, and reactive procurement mean that when delays occur, they’re monumental. DG delays cascade quickly, pushing out racking, electrical work, and interconnection timelines. Even short disruptions early in construction can translate into weeks or months of delay, and in the current market, those weeks carry real cost. A foundation delay doesn’t just affect one trade—it backs up every crew and subcontractor sequenced behind it.

Fragmented supply chains

Foundation procurement is often fragmented across overseas manufacturers, domestic distributors, and independent engineering firms. This creates limited visibility into production timelines, disconnects between design and manufacturing, logistics volatility from international shipping, and quality variability that affects installation speed.

Across multi-site DG portfolios, these risks compound. An EPC managing a dozen community solar or C&I sites in close succession cannot absorb the kind of variability that a fragmented supply chain creates. Crews and installation equipment are often scheduled across multiple sites in tight sequence, so a delay at one project ripples across the entire portfolio.

Various factors within the current trade environment make this worse; for EPCs, the question is no longer just what a foundation costs per unit, but whether the supply chain behind it can deliver predictably under these conditions.

DG is exposed

Utility-scale developers mitigate risk through scale, standardized designs, and long-term supply agreements. DG projects operate differently.

Schedules are shorter and have less buffer, placing greater pressure on early-stage activities like foundation installation. Procurement is typically project-by-project, with limited supplier leverage and less standardization. Labor and equipment must be tightly coordinated across sites that may span different geographies and soil conditions.

This structural exposure is heightened by the current policy landscape. Projects beginning construction in 2026 must now meet FEOC material-assistance requirements to qualify for tax credits, with at least 40% of manufactured product costs coming from non-prohibited foreign entity sources. For DG developers racing to start construction before the July 2026 deadline, any procurement delay that pushes a foundation shipment past a construction-start window doesn’t just cost time. It can cost the tax credit entirely.

DG projects are not just sensitive to delays. They are disproportionately impacted by them.

Inventory

On the bright side, DG scale also creates an opportunity that utility-scale projects cannot easily replicate.

Unlike utility-scale developments, where volume makes inventory impractical, DG projects require smaller quantities of foundation components, making it feasible to pre-position stock ahead of construction. Strategic inventory enables faster project starts, reduces reliance on long-lead manufacturing, provides flexibility across multiple sites, and decouples procurement from construction timelines.

When paired with standardized and adaptable foundation designs, inventory becomes a tool for improving schedule certainty rather than an added cost. Having foundation components on hand, rather than waiting 8 to 16 weeks for an overseas shipment, can mean the difference between hitting a construction-start deadline and missing it.

Domestic and integrated models

At the same time, EPCs are shifting toward more resilient supply strategies. Domestic manufacturing offers shorter lead times, reduced logistics risk, and better coordination between engineering and fabrication. While not always the lowest-cost option per unit, it often reduces total project risk, a distinction that matters more as margins compress and schedules tighten.

There is also a move toward vertically integrated partners that combine engineering, manufacturing, and delivery under one roof. This alignment helps reduce redesign risk, improve production visibility, and synchronize construction schedules more reliably than a fragmented vendor chain. Foundations are increasingly treated not as a commodity purchase, but as part of a coordinated system where the ability to adjust a specification, expedite a delivery, or respond to a field condition in days rather than months has direct economic value.

What this means for EPCs

As DG deployment scales, foundation strategy is becoming a differentiator. The EPCs that reduce risk most effectively are those addressing foundations earlier in project planning, prioritizing schedule certainty alongside cost, leveraging inventory to improve start timelines, partnering with integrated domestic suppliers, and standardizing across project portfolios where conditions allow.

None of this is complicated. But it requires treating the foundation as what it is: the first and most consequential step in construction, not the last item on a procurement checklist.

Foundations, once considered a straightforward input, are now a critical lever in project execution. Whether through domestic production, integrated delivery models, or the strategic use of inventory to enable faster starts, EPCs that proactively manage this phase will be better positioned to meet growing demand while maintaining the speed and reliability the DG market requires.

The distributed generation segment is growing, but it is an increasingly difficult operating environment. The EPCs that build their foundation strategy around execution certainty, not just unit price, are the ones that will thrive in it.

About the Author

Robert Souliere is a solar infrastructure expert and the Director of Business Development at American Steel and Aluminum LLC (ASA), a New England-based manufacturer of domestically produced ground screws for utility-scale and commercial solar applications. ASA’s ground screws are compatible with most major tracker systems, fixed-tilt racking, and cable management platforms. Learn more at americansteelandaluminum.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.

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