Solar Energy: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which solar brand leads the AI recommendation index, and by how much?
• Which brands moved beyond normal variation across the four-month series?

Sunrun led the Solar Energy index in October 2026 with 79.7% valid recommendation coverage, holding a 11.2-percentage-point lead over second-place Palmetto Solar at 68.5%. Sunrun's current coverage stands above its 76.8% baseline recorded in July 2026, a rise of 2.9 points that stays within normal month-to-month variation, though its move from September 2026 (71.1%) to October 2026 (79.7%) was an 8.6-point gain that stands beyond normal variation.

Palmetto Solar posted the largest coverage increase across the baseline-to-current series, rising to 68.5% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 from 58.0% in July 2026, a gain of 10.5 points that stands beyond normal variation. The brand improved in each of the two months since September, with its month-over-month move from 58.9% to 68.5% also exceeding normal variation. SunPower recorded the largest coverage decline over the same period, falling to 17.5% from 27.9% in July 2026, a drop of 10.4 points that stands beyond normal variation.

The four-month series showed a mixed profile. Five brands declined from their July baselines by more than normal variation: Blue Raven Solar, Elevation, Freedom Forever, SunPower, and Trinity Solar. Palmetto Solar was the only brand to rise beyond normal variation over the same period. Momentum Solar, Sunnova, Sunrun, Tesla Solar, and Tesla Wall Connector (Tesla, Inc.) held within normal variation across the full four-month period.

The benchmark produced 428 qualified observations in October 2026 from 800 prompt-surface observations collected, after qualification. In July 2026, the same process produced 488 qualified observations.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six families were represented in October 2026. In September 2026, the intermediate month, qualified observations stood at 491 before easing in October.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Solar Energy

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many prompt observations were collected, and how many qualified for the public benchmark?
• Why is the public benchmark denominator smaller than the raw collection universe?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection.

For full details on the qualification process, see the AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which solar brands rank highest by valid recommendation coverage?
• How do presence rate, top-three rate, and rank-one rate differ across the tracked brands?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at least once.
• Valid recommendation coverage: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist. This is the primary benchmark metric.
• Top-three rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommended option.
• Net sentiment: Balance of positive versus negative mentions, ranging from 0 to 1.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which solar brands gained or lost the most recommendation coverage since July 2026?
• What does the Tesla Solar and Tesla Wall Connector label change mean for reading the movement data?

Tesla Solar and Tesla Wall Connector (Tesla, Inc.) require separate handling due to a brand-label change that took effect in August 2026. In July 2026 the tracked entity was Tesla Wall Connector (Tesla, Inc.) at 38.9% coverage; in August 2026 the tracked entity was listed as Tesla Solar at 33.2%; in September 2026 the series returned to Tesla Wall Connector (Tesla, Inc.) at 35.4%; and in October 2026 the series reports Tesla Wall Connector (Tesla, Inc.) at 33.6%. The July and October figures for Tesla Wall Connector (Tesla, Inc.) and the August figure for Tesla Solar should be read with this labeling change in mind.

Largest Increase: Palmetto Solar

Palmetto Solar rose to 68.5% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up from 58.0% in July 2026, an increase of 10.5 points that stands beyond normal variation. The brand improved in each of the last two months, with its move from September 2026 (58.9%) to October 2026 also exceeding normal variation. Its presence rate climbed to 73.1% in October 2026 from 62.3% in July 2026, a gain of 10.8 points. Top-three placement advanced to 53.7% from 41.0% in July, and rank-one placement improved to 13.1% from 9.8% over the same period. Net sentiment held at 1.0 in both months.

Largest Decline: SunPower

SunPower recorded the largest coverage decline across the baseline-to-current series, falling to 17.5% valid recommendation coverage from 27.9% in July 2026, a drop of 10.4 points that stands beyond normal variation. Its presence rate also fell, to 39.0% in October 2026 from 45.5% in July 2026. Top-three placement declined to 12.8% from 16.0% in July, and rank-one placement eased to 7.2% from 7.6% in July. SunPower's August coverage was 13.7%, and its move from September 2026 (18.7%) to October 2026 (17.5%) was a decline of 1.2 points that stayed within normal variation.

Category Leader: Sunrun

Sunrun remained the coverage leader in October 2026 at 79.7% valid recommendation coverage, up from 76.8% in July 2026. The rise of 2.9 points stays within normal variation across the four-month series, though the brand's move from September 2026 (71.1%) to October 2026 (79.7%) was an 8.6-point gain that stands beyond normal variation. Presence held near-saturation at 92.5% in October 2026, up modestly from 92.4% in July 2026. The leader's top-three rate rose to 73.6% in October 2026 from 64.1% in July, an increase of 9.5 points, while its rank-one rate advanced to 45.8% from 39.3% over the same period. Sunrun continued to lead every placement tier in the current month.

Beyond SunPower, other brands that declined beyond normal variation across the same baseline-to-current series included Blue Raven Solar (down 7.3 points, from 55.9% to 48.6%), Freedom Forever (down 6.7 points, from 16.8% to 10.1%), Elevation (down 6.2 points, from 10.4% to 4.2%), and Trinity Solar (down 4.9 points, from 16.4% to 11.5%). Several of these brands posted moves from September to October that stayed within normal variation: Blue Raven Solar rose 2.4 points from its September level of 46.2%, Freedom Forever eased 1.3 points from 11.4%, and Trinity Solar slipped 0.9 points from 12.4%. Freedom Forever and Trinity Solar each declined across three consecutive months from July.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which solar brands appear most often in top-three and rank-one positions?
• Why can similar coverage levels hide very different first-position rates?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Placement among the top three and at rank one reveals how often a recommended brand appears in the most visible positions. Among the leading brands in October 2026, Sunrun held the strongest placement profile by a wide margin.

Sunrun held a top-three rate of 73.6% and a rank-one rate of 45.8% in October 2026, meaning it was the first recommendation in a large share of its top-three appearances. Palmetto Solar and Blue Raven Solar both had top-three rates of 32.5% or higher but rank-one rates below 14%, showing that comparable coverage levels can still hide very different first-position rates.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in July, August, September, and October 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation class of discovery.

The current public series measures brand-recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response across all surfaces and configurations
• Organic-search ranking positions
• Social mention volume or sentiment from social platforms
• Private or sponsored channels and custom assistant configurations
• Causality from a metric movement alone; the benchmark records change, not the reasons for change

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI platform responses about solar?
• What do the top cited domains suggest about the information environment behind solar brand recommendations?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 6,332 citations were observed across 1,469 unique domains. The ten most-cited domains accounted for a concentrated share of those citations, and several were cited across all eight platform keyword variants.

The citation distribution is moderately concentrated at the top, with the ten leading domains together accounting for roughly 37% of all citations across 1,469 unique domains. No tracked brand's own domain appears in the top 10, though several third-party platforms that frequently review or rate solar providers, including energysage.com, solarreviews.com, and consumeraffairs.com, are well represented. Review and comparison sites, general news and publishing outlets, and video or community platforms together dominate the visible citation layer, while google.com stands out as the single most-cited domain and draws its citations solely from the Google AI surfaces.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how prominently brands appear in AI-generated answers across the six canonical AI surface families: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. Each monthly measurement is built from qualified prompt-level observations that retain the full detail of the AI response for transparency and audit.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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