[RE-wrenches] electrical permit requirements

[Bill Brooks]

www.solarabcs.org/permitting

 

Check it out.

 

From: re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org
[mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Nick Soleil
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 5:01 PM
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] electrical permit requirements

 

Hi Jeff:
    My standard permit docs are comprehensive, but do not include
documentation regarding string sizing, thank goodness.  A permit technician/
plan reviewer should not be overseeing string sizing.  You should be
thankful that the permit fees are so low, because that is the best thing a
jurisdiction could do to support PV!  
    Any fly-by-night, incompetent installer can check string sizing on the
inverter manu's web site.  I would suspect that, regardless of the plan
review process, the less experienced installers will still be accountable to
the inspector and their customer.

 

Nick Soleil
Project Manager
Advanced Alternative Energy Solutions, LLC
PO Box 657
Petaluma, CA 94953
Cell: 707-321-2937
Office: 707-789-9537
Fax: 707-769-9037

 

 

  _____  

From: William Miller <william at millersolar.com>
To: jryago at netscape.com; RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Sent: Tue, June 15, 2010 3:43:38 PM
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] electrical permit requirements

Jeff:

Good point made here.  We too became concerned about lax enforcement some
years ago.  We started inviting ourselves to the Building Inspector trade
group meetings.  We submitted a permit application check list to the local
jurisdictions.  It sat on desks for a while, but eventually the lead plan
checker was asked to make a presentation to the trade group and the handiest
document was our check list.  It became adopted.

Bill Brooks has worked on this issue and has resources.

I suggest you start a dialog and then be quick and thorough on the follow up
and you can have a positive influence.

William Miller


At 03:12 PM 6/15/2010, Jeff Yago wrote:



Well, this should start up a fire storm.   

I will not mention the county or state as we do work in many other areas,
but today I stopped by a county building permit office to apply for a permit
to install a grid-tie solar system that includes battery backup and
generator, which we are adding to an existing very high end home.  I will
also add this is a very well populated and modern city where the county
offices are located.

I walked in with my permit application which included the permit form, a CAD
drawing of the solar system wiring showing all dis-connects, wire sizes,
conduit sizes and connections to the existing home wiring system.  We also
included a spreadsheet form we have that shows all the calculations for the
solar array to inverter wiring and inverter string sizing including high and
low temperature and conduit adjusted voltage and currents from the array
based on the record temperatures for that location.  We also include a cut
sheet for the modules and the inverter(s) which show they have all the
required code, IEEE, NEC and other labeling requirements.  Just to be
complete, we also include an analysis printout from the inverter
manufacturer showing the correct match-up of number of modules, number of
strings, and estimated yearly performance.

The clerk looked at this stack of documentation, then returned it all to me
and asked for the $30 permit fee.  She said there is no plan review for
anything like this unless its a commercial electrical project.

I guess with all the stories of really bad experiences of others on this
list with inspectors not knowing what they are looking for and stupid permit
rules I should be pleased this went so smoothly.

However, I fear this is the kind of lax enforcement that will allow my
competition to keep under-pricing me as they can get away with installing
cheap products and not taking into account hight and low temperature effect
on modules , length of wire run on voltage drop, and string sizing on the
selection of wire, conduit, dis-connects, fuses, and inverters.

I also fear this is an accident waiting to happen that will give us all
installing solar in this county a black eye.   So, do I have this discussion
with the inspection office as I plan to do, or is this a fight for another
day.

Jeff Yago
DTI Solar

 

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