Streamlining permitting to bring more solar to more homes more quickly

Local Massachusetts municipal leaders joined us in learning more about the benefits of smart permitting for residential solar and storage. Smart permitting, is an electronic platform that automates the permitting process – saving time, money, resources and results in more solar.

Joining MASSPIRG Education Fund on the webinar, co-hosted with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), was Bronson Bast of the SolarApp+ Foundation, and Kimberly Norman-Rosedam, Building official and ADA coordinator for the town of Guilford, CT, who spoke about the value to her town and its residents from using the smart permitting platform called SolarApp+.

Photo by TPIN staff | TPIN

The challenge: inefficient permitting process

By 2022, Massachusetts had only tapped 10.8% of its rooftop solar potential, a figure that needs to grow rapidly for the state to meet its clean energy goals.  A major obstacle to solar growth is slow, cumbersome, inconsistent permitting, which is done at the city and town level. Obtaining a permit for residential solar can take weeks or months, causing some homeowners to forego solar altogether. Even in jurisdictions with streamlined permitting, different processes and requirements unique to that permitting office can add significant costs to contractors who pass those on to their customers. As a result, fewer homes go solar than otherwise would.

More than 125 jurisdictions in Massachusetts still require in-person permitting.

The opportunity: smart permitting

Over the past several years, local jurisdictions in other states have increasingly adopted software platforms that automate their solar permitting- generally called “smart permitting”.

These platforms ask the contractor a series of questions to verify the solar system’s design is up to code and then issue a permit automatically for installation to begin. While a handful of smart permitting platforms are on the market, the gold standard is SolarAPP+ (Solar Instant Permitting Processing). SolarAPP+ was developed by the Department of Energy in collaboration with building safety and industry stakeholders.

It is free for all permitting offices and easy to use.

The benefits: solar growth and government savings

Smart permitting speeds up residential solar and storage installation; lowers the price of solar and storage by thousands of dollars; saves municipalities time and money; reduces cancellations, resulting in more solar on more roofs and more batteries in more garages.

Benefits for Building Departments:

Smart Permitting streamlines the permitting process, reducing workload and saving valuable staff time – allowing them to focus their attention on manual reviews. Solar projects permitted through SolarAPP+, for example, reduce failed inspections by 29%. This demonstrates the power of Smart Permitting tools to improve code compliance, which reduces costly and time-consuming back and forth revisions between contractors and permit technicians.

Smart permitting will help Massachusetts get to 100% renewable energy and lower energy bills for families.