[RE-wrenches] SolarApp+ app from NREL - has anyone used this for permitting?

[Louis Woofenden]

Hi David & Wrenches,

We participated in the pilot of SolarAPP starting around February of 
last year, for Pima County and the City of Tucson here in Arizona, and 
have continued to use it as was fully rolled out.

It's a great tool! It's really sped up the process for permits we use it 
for, allowing for same-day permits for about 80-90% of our jobs in those 
AHJs. It does have a few quirks to learn, and there are some limitations 
as to what installations can go through SolarAPP. NREL and their 
development partners have been pretty responsive in terms of 
improvements and corrections, as well as increasing functionality.

The main benefit we have found is speed. The City of Tucson had a 
serious backlog in permit applications, and we were sometimes waiting 
10-12 weeks for permits, which was pretty frustrating. From the AHJ 
perspective, it's saving them a _lot_ of review time. NREL has shared 
some good stats in some of the presentations they've done.

We still do a full set of construction plans, even though that's not 
part of SolarAPP, mostly to have a solid detailed plan for our 
installers, but also because some utilities are still requiring some of 
those sheets.

Best,
Louis Woofenden

Net Zero Solar
Tucson, AZ

David Coale wrote on 2/2/22 3:13 PM:
> Hi Wrenchers,
>
> Has anyone used the SolarApp+ application for permitting solar? Â It is 
> just getting started and sounds very promising and could greatly 
> reduce the soft costs of installations.
>
> More info can be found here: https://solarapp.nrel.gov/
>
> David
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> List sponsored by Redwood Alliance
>
> Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org
>
> List Address: RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
>
> Change listserver email address & settings:
> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
>
> There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other:
> https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/
> http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org
>
> List rules & etiquette:
> http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm
>
> Check out or update participant bios:
> http://www.members.re-wrenches.org
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches_lists.re-wrenches.org/attachments/20220210/96249b7e/attachment.htm>