More than solar panels on your roof is needed to go solar. The project must be approved, installed, inspected, and connected to the grid after you have selected an installer. Most of these steps depend on the local government and utility companies. This means that the process will vary depending on where you live. Interconnection times can vary greatly, taking up to several months to complete, with more than 3,000 utility companies and 18,000 jurisdictions in the United States. SunShot Initiative Awardees help streamline and simplify this process throughout the United States.
The Solar Foundation’s SolSmart Program encourages U.S. local governments to update or implement solar policies, and they recognize them for their efforts. The program examines which basic policies are supportive of solar development. It also helps other communities to learn from these observations and rates them based on their achievements.
SolSmart communities should post a permit checklist online. This is one of the most important things they can do. This level of transparency reduces the time spent on the phone or writing emails. It also decreases the travel to the permitting office. Local governments can also invest in posting documents online at a low cost, resulting in less time staff spend handling permit tasks.
The communities that achieve the highest SolSmart ratings are doing more to accelerate the solar process. The communities with the highest SolSmart rating are doing even more to speed up the solar cycle.
Around half of SolSmart’s designees are at the highest level, the program’s gold award. Some of those individuals go above and beyond what is required. Skype is used by one local government to conduct inspections. This requires only 15 minutes notice in advance and can save time and money.
Find out more about how your community can participate in the SolSmart Program.
Utilities are vital in going solar, including coordinating with various stakeholders to connect a solar energy system with the electric grid. California utility Pacific Gas and Electric led a team consisting of solar companies and software developers to reduce the complexity and time involved in the process. The team developed online permitting, automated interconnection, and remote inspections. This resulted in over 6,000 solar projects online per month in 2016. Other utilities and jurisdictions can replicate this team’s synergy to make going solar more cost-effective and efficient.
Grid Unity’s cloud-connected technology is a crucial technology PG&E and other utilities are leveraging. It determines the impact of a solar project on the grid. The company created an energy analytics platform to assess the grid impact for any distributed energy project using SunShot funding. The utility receives instant feedback on the suitability of the circuit for the project. This reduces the average interconnection time from 80 days to a few hours. This is 98% faster than most utilities’ processes today. Solar projects can now start producing electricity more quickly than ever.
These improvements will help Americans save money and time as they use clean energy to power their homes. SunShot reduces the cost and complexity of going solar by designing programs to encourage local communities to cut red tape and simplify business processes for American businesses and consumers.