SolarPermit.org, a website developed by SunShot awardee Clean Power Finance and supported by a Department of Energy grant, “organizes and simplifies the solar permitting process by compiling permitting information in a single location.” The newly redesigned website hosts the National Solar Permitting Database, a free, online database of solar permitting requirements for cities and counties across the country. The website now contains “80% of jurisdictions with 200 or more residential installations per year.”
The website “is an interactive, crowd-sourced website – similar to Wikipedia – for solar permitting requirements.” Solar contractors and others can use the website to collect information from the database that may be helpful to them and to contribute information to the database based upon their experiences that may be helpful to others. Users of the website are able to provide feedback on the information provided by others. The “database contains jurisdictions for over 18,000 United States cities and counties. Each page includes over 100 data fields to give users an easy way to track a wide range of information about permitting requirements and processes.” Information made available on the website includes: (1) contact information, (2) turnaround times, (3) fees, (4) specifications for system designs, (5) inspection processes, and (6) common errors.
The website’s goal is to “minimize the time and resources required to… support the mass-market adoption of solar.”
Additional Resources: August 18, 2013 SunShot Newsletter; California Solar Permitting Guidebook (June 2012, 1st Ed.)