2025 was a year defined by extraordinary progress, meaningful partnerships, resilience amid uncertainty, and renewed commitment to the mission at the heart of Brightwell’s work: helping communities thrive through smarter energy solutions.

Rather than share a single perspective, we believe the best reflection of Brightwell’s year comes directly from the leaders guiding it forward. Below, you’ll find three reflections—each distinct in voice and vantage point—capturing Brightwell’s growth, challenges, and impact in 2025.

Use this space to read them all together, understand the story they collectively tell, and see the momentum driving us into 2026.

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Investing in Impact: How 2025 Strengthened Communities, People, and Purpose

— Tony Capucille, CEO

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I love both January and December because they mark the beginning and the end of a year. As we step into December, it’s a natural moment to pause, look back on the work of the past twelve months, and evaluate the impact it made.

When people measure work, they often reduce success to financial return. At Brightwell, we care about the return on our capital, but we hold two other questions with equal weight: How well did we serve our customers? And how well did we care for our people? Looking back on this year, there is much to reflect on—and even more to be grateful for.

At the top of the list is the extraordinary work the Brightwell team delivered. Not only did we build and execute a record number of projects in 2025, but we also prepared the runway for the next four years. This year alone, we pulled off complex, meaningful projects for nonprofits, schools, and food banks—the very fabric of communities across America.

Close to home, we developed a project for Together We Church in Yukon, Oklahoma, an incredible congregation with an innovative leadership team that wants to steward their resources wisely for decades and inspire others to redirect utility dollars into ministry. We also advanced our long-running work with Millwood High School—a project that began back in 2021 before Brightwell even existed. Their superintendent, Cecilia, has shown what patient persistence and visionary leadership can accomplish for her students.

And then there was our first project outside our core markets: the Food Bank of the Rockies, delivered in partnership with Namasté Solar—an exceptional installer out of Colorado. While installation won’t occur until 2026, this project is already on track to dramatically expand the number of meals served in that community. Partnering with Namasté has been a joy.

There were so many other projects this year that I can’t name them all in a single post, but I can say this: every one of their stories mattered. And the investors behind them mattered too. We couldn’t do any of this without them. They get to direct their tax dollars with agency, generate returns that build and preserve wealth, and create impact that endures for decades. Even more encouraging, many came back for their second—or even third—project inside Brightwell’s first two years. There is nothing more energizing than a repeat customer.

So how did we do on social capital? Our NPS score landed in the 80s. For those who track NPS, you know how remarkable that is. At past companies, breaking into the 50s earned celebration. Scoring in the high eighties tells me we are genuinely serving our customers—organizations and investors alike—and delivering more than $50M back into the hands of the institutions that strengthen our communities. What a reward.

Likewise, our team—small, talented, and aligned—moved mountains this year. We had a record-breaking number of nonprofits sign EMSAs ready to be matched with investors. At the same time, we built an exceptional capital sales team supported by some of the best tax lawyers, CPAs, and RIAs anywhere—people who want to help their clients innovate with their tax dollars. The momentum heading into 2026 is remarkable and underscores a simple truth: people want a say in where their tax dollars go and what those dollars should impact.

Our employee NPS also landed in the 80s, showing that our team finds joy and meaning here. And they didn’t just deliver in 2025—they laid the foundation for 2026-2029. After the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) and the subsequent safe-harbor guidance (IRS Notice 2025-42) were finalized, our team moved immediately. We implemented a safe-harbor strategy that procured more than $160M in Brightwell projects to be sold over the next four years. For a small solar finance company, that is no small feat. It’s the work of brilliant talent, deep know-how, and a desire to make an impact far beyond our backyard.

And that impact endures for decades, not quarters. That is what I love most about this year. It feels like planting a tree: we will see some of the early harvest, but much of the fruit will appear over the next 50 years. When I think about it through that lens, I am even more proud. This is lasting work—and lasting work is worth doing.

Thank you to the teammates who made this possible, to the organizations that trust us to develop legacy solar projects, to the investors who use their tax dollars to change their communities, and to the solar installers whose teams bring these projects to life. A Brightwell project is always a collective effort, and I am grateful to be building this with all of you.

I can’t wait for 2026. Please join us—this is an incredible group to make things happen with.

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Turning Uncertainty into Momentum

— Kent Cissell, President

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If you had asked me in January of this year what 2025 would look like, I would have predicted growth and impact, but I wouldn’t have predicted the sheer velocity of the headwinds we were about to face.

In the energy sector, we are accustomed to turbulence. But 2025 brought us the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” It was a piece of legislation that sent shockwaves through our industry, creating a layer of market uncertainty that forced many organizations to pause, retreat, or fold entirely.

It was the kind of year that tests the DNA of a company. When the regulatory and economic winds howl, the natural human instinct is to recoil—to bunker down, conserve resources, and wait for the storm to pass.

At Brightwell, we made a different choice. We decided that we would not use this year to hide, but to build muscle. We chose to treat the headwinds not as a signal to stop, but as resistance training. As I look back on the last twelve months, I can say with absolute conviction: We are a stronger, sharper, and more essential company today than we were when the year began.

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The Technology of Delivery

Our resilience wasn’t based on blind optimism; it was built on infrastructure. This year, we deployed what I believe is truly best-in-class technology for project delivery in the energy savings space.

In a market defined by friction—where complex tax codes collide with nonprofit board approvals—our technology became the grease in the gears. We didn’t just build a marketplace; we built a delivery engine. This platform has allowed us to take projects that were previously viewed as “unbankable” or “too complex” and streamline them into reality.

This technology enabled us to deepen our relationships with some of the best Commercial & Industrial (C&I) solar installation companies across the United States. We stopped being just a partner or financier, and became a vital organ in their operations. We worked alongside them to bring projects to life in their local markets, empowered their sales teams with our digital tools, and supported them through complex safe harboring exercises that protected their margins during a volatile year.  We have become a catalyst for their development efforts.

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The Human Impact: A Nationwide Movement

Technology and legislation are abstract, but our “Why” is tangible. Brightwell exists because pillars of our community—schools, rehabilitation centers, places of worship, youth camps—are bleeding capital through their utility bills. Capital that should be serving people.

Despite the macroeconomic noise of 2025, we successfully developed dozens of game-changing projects across the country. From coast to coast, we helped mission-driven organizations unlock energy savings that were previously unachievable.

While I cannot recount every success story of the year, I want to share a couple of specific examples that illustrate the transformative power of the work our team did this year.

The first is South Central Industries in Shawnee, Oklahoma. This organization does the holy work of providing opportunities for people with developmental disabilities. They are an engine of dignity and independence. But like many nonprofits, their operating budget is a constant battle.

Through the Brightwell marketplace, we helped them implement a renewable energy solution that has an ongoing impact of reducing their operating budget by over $50,000 per year.

Pause on that number for a moment. In the corporate world, $50k might be a line item. For South Central Industries, that is impactful program expansion. That is more individuals receiving job training. That is more families finding support. We didn’t just lower a bill; we expanded their capacity to care. They also have created independence in insulating themselves from future increases to this portion of their energy expenditures.

The second is a school in Frankfort, Kentucky. This school was facing a crisis common to aging infrastructure: a failing roof. A roof replacement is usually a massive capital expenditure that offers zero ROI—it’s a sunk cost that drains reserves.

We came in and flipped the script. We helped them replace the roof and install a solar solution that will save them almost $2,000,000 in utility costs over the warrantied life of the solution. We turned a liability into a multi-million-dollar asset. That is money that will now go to teacher salaries, scholarships, and books, rather than vanishing into the utility grid.

These two stories are not anomalies; they are the blueprint. They represent what we achieved in dozens of communities this year, even while the market was shaking.

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2026: The Year of Velocity

So, where does that leave us?

We spent 2025 forging our armor in the fire of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” We refined our technology. We cemented our partnerships with installers who now trust us implicitly because we stood by them when the market got scary. We proved that even in a down market, we can deliver millions of dollars in value to the nonprofits that need it most.

As we look toward 2026, we are done playing defense.

The foundation is set. The technology is proven. The model works. 2026 is not about surviving the wind; it is about adjusting our sails to catch it. We are moving into the new year with an aggressive mandate to scale our impact. We intend to take the “Frankfort Model” and the “South Central Model” and replicate them in hundreds of communities across every state we operate in.

To our investors, our partners, and our team: Thank you for holding the line with us in 2025. Now, let’s keep changing the energy landscape of America.

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Investing in Impact: How 2025 Strengthened Communities, People, and Purpose

— Trey Raymer, CFO

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Wild Night

Stop and think about that.  An issue so obscure that most renewable energy companies don’t fully understand it, let alone the average U.S. citizen, became the final sticking point for a historic piece of legislation.

During those hectic days, I watched more C-SPAN than I care to admit. Seeing members of the House Freedom Caucus go from threatening to kill the bill over this single issue to celebrating on the House floor after receiving assurances from President Trump made one thing clear – change was coming.

Sure enough, the week following the passage of the OBBBA, President Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Treasury to tighten safe harbor rules, leading to IRS Notice 2025-42 on August 15.

In a year full of consequential developments for the renewable energy industry, one surreal moment will forever encapsulate 2025.  Well past the witching hour on July 3, one issue stood between the passage of President Trump’s multi-trillion-dollar One Big Beautiful Bill Act (“OBBBA”) that represented the entirety of his second term agenda for which a July 4 deadline had been established: safe harboring renewable energy tax credits.  

Into this storm of complex challenges and uncertainty, Brightwell stepped in to provide solutions.

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Preparation Meets Opportunity

“Change is inevitable, growth is optional” – John C. Maxwell

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Shortly following the 2024 election, as it became clear the political winds were shifting in ways that could significantly impact renewable energy, Brightwell undertook a focused effort to understand the nuances of safe harboring solar projects.  It quickly became evident that practical guidance was lacking.  Rather than hoarding this knowledge to simply benefit our own projects, we established a unique objective to deliver thought leadership to the industry starved for it.

We also made the prescient decision to partner with regional, national and global firms to incorporate perspectives from a wide variety of tax and legal experts.  This included co-authoring the publication with David Mohimani and Martin Karamon from national CPA firm Cherry Bekaert.  While the process of writing our safe harbor publication began months before the OBBBA passed, we continued to refine it up through and including the release of IRS Notice 2025-42.  

A key contributor to this effort was Keith Martin, a partner at the global renewable energy law firm powerhouse Norton Rose Fulbright, who performed a detailed review of our publication and provided incredible insights.  Being a voracious consumer of information as legislation was taking shape this year, Keith’s analysis of the impacts on the renewable energy industry was consistently best in class and why I was so thrilled to have him onboard.

Without question, the most rewarding part of this exercise has been presenting our work to numerous solar installers and networks throughout the country, helping them to implement strategies to safe harbor their project pipelines for the next four years.  While publicly traded solar companies and large national developers have experience with this topic, most solar installers – especially small and mid-sized regional players – have never safe harbored a project.  Being a resource and providing clear pathways forward is where Brightwell thrives, and we look forward to continuing to be an industry leader in the years to come.

More importantly, this work will directly lead to the completion of renewable energy projects that otherwise would not have occurred, resulting in winning outcomes for our communities across the country.