Building my first solar proposal generator in n8n
Documenting the exact workflow — utility bill input to formatted proposal — using Claude API and n8n. The good, the broken, and the iterations.
Subscribe to follow →Built around proposals, permits, and the paperwork that slows your crew down. Real automation on n8n + Claude API — designed for residential solar businesses.
Sales. Engineering. Permitting. Construction. Finance. Most SMB installers coordinate all of it manually across five to ten disconnected systems. Every handoff is a manual step. Every manual step is a delay or an error.
Reps spend hours manually scoring leads from web forms, EnergySage, and referrals — while hot prospects move on.
Customizing proposals from utility data, site notes, and equipment specs takes 2–4 hours each. Close rates suffer.
Every jurisdiction has different rules. One missed requirement restarts the clock — and customer trust.
Lender packets assembled by hand mean missing docs, resubmissions, and stalled installations.
Between contract and install, customers go weeks with no updates. Cancellation rates rise.
Inspection records, as-builts, warranty docs scattered across email, Drive, and binders. Service calls become scavenger hunts.
Most automation consultants stop at "connect the apps." That breaks fast. Real automation needs intelligence, integration, and structure — working together.
Workflows that don't just move data — they understand it. Using Claude and OpenAI APIs to extract from PDFs, generate proposal language, qualify leads, and make routing decisions.
Connecting your CRM, design tools, document storage, lender portals, and communication channels so data flows automatically. Built on n8n, Power Automate, or custom Python where it counts.
Taxonomy, metadata, governance, and asset lifecycle thinking — the structural backbone most automation projects skip. Without it, workflows break under real-world load.
"AI makes it smart. Integration makes it connected. DAM makes it scale. Skip any of the three and you're shipping a demo, not a system."
Every engagement starts with a Solar Operations Audit. From there, we pick the highest-leverage workflow and build it. No multi-month timelines. No bloated retainers up front.
SMB installers running 5–50 person teams, doing $2M–$50M in annual revenue, drowning in manual workflows. Especially Ohio and Midwest companies.
If you're outside solar but have a real automation problem — referrals welcome.
My day job is organizing thousands of digital assets for an organization that takes documentation seriously. The same structural chaos I solve every day? Most small businesses are drowning in it.
My background is environmental science with a concentration in natural resources, plus graduate coursework in data science. I'm a Digital Asset Manager by trade — which means I think in taxonomies, metadata, and asset lifecycles by default. Combined with AI automation and system integration, that's the foundation AdamAI is built on.
The energy transition is the most important infrastructure shift of our lifetime. Solar installers are the boots on the ground making it happen — and most of them are doing extraordinary technical work while strangled by manual paperwork and disconnected tools.
AdamAI exists to close that gap. AI reasoning, system integration, and DAM-grade structure — applied to one specific industry that needs it badly. Solar first. Adjacent industries as the foundation grows.
I write about real automation builds — what's working, what's breaking, and what solar installers are actually asking for. New posts on LinkedIn first, then archived here.
Documenting the exact workflow — utility bill input to formatted proposal — using Claude API and n8n. The good, the broken, and the iterations.
Subscribe to follow →After mapping a dozen installer operations, these five workflows show up everywhere — and they're the ones to automate before anything else.
Subscribe to follow →The structural reason automation projects fail at scale — and the asset lifecycle thinking that keeps them running for years instead of weeks.
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Follow on LinkedInThe first call is a 30-minute Solar Operations Audit conversation. I'll learn how your team currently handles proposals, permits, and documentation — and tell you honestly where AI automation would actually help. If it wouldn't, I'll say so.