What are local governments saying about SolarAPP+?

SolarAPP+ saves time and money

“We’re now able to move qualifying solar permits directly to field inspections, which is giving our staff much needed time to work on other, more complex projects.” - Geoff Simmons, Chief Building Official, Pleasant Hill (CA)
“Offering our solar customers a way to self-permit expedites the process.” - Carla Blackwell, director of Pima County, AZ Development Services
“Tucson, Arizona managed to reduce the time that was needed for permitting reviews from 20 business days to zero. Speeding up permitting. That means that we can do more installations, have more clean energy capacity, more jobs.” - Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy, as quoted from the Leadership Roundtable
“Automating plan review, permit approval, and project tracking would also save time and money for both installers and the city. This is why I have asked the permitting center to test the SolarAPP software in Houston” - Sylvester Turner, Mayor, City of Houston (TX), Cities Choose SolarAPP+
“The novelty of the tool is that it gets rid of the lengthy, inefficient, bureaucratic and manual process of permit approvals without compromising on safety,” said Pol Lezcano, an analyst at BloombergNEF. “It may or may not be perfect, but it's definitely way better than the current permitting process and reduces the risk of human error.”
“SolarAPP+ cuts permit processing time to less than one hour, all while maintaining quality and safety. This can accelerate solar energy deployment and bolster businesses across the country – by reducing the time and complexity of solar permitting, and also by lowering costs, making solar more accessible to low- and moderate-income Americans.” Secretary Jennifer Granholm, US Department of Energy, in an open letter to American mayors
“To us, it’s an exciting opportunity to accelerate implementation. It’s a force multiplier for our staff. Phoenix is literally the fastest growing city in the country… We are seeing growth that is outpacing our ability to hire, so having this additional tool is exciting for us, because we don’t want to slow down our residents who want to install solar. It also frees up our staff to do more oversight and focus more on the very complex projects…Hiring is a real challenge right now. This is one of our areas where there is such a need for expertise right now, and having an additional tool is very helpful. This is really a win-win… More solar and more efficient processes get a wide berth of support.” - Kate Gallegos, Mayor of Phoenix (AZ), SolarAPP+ Industry Roundtable
“If I could use SolarAPP+ to get through 150 PV plans a month, that would be a great relief for my staff.” - Steve Jones, Assistant Building Official, City of Oceanside, CA PV Magazine
“Now our customers have the ability, not the obligation but the ability to use SolarAPP+, and within the 15 minutes it takes them to enter their information and contractors’ licenses through our permitting system, they can have the permit in hand, so that is literally saving weeks of their schedule and it saves our staff time as well.” – Eric Browning, CBO, Denver (CO), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar
“Originally, if you look at the timeframe, we took about 9 days to get a solar plan through our system… Once we implemented [SolarAPP+], we went from 9 days down to one day, so that was a tremendous value for the contractors and also the homeowners.” - Byron King, CBO, Houston (TX), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar
“There is no downslide. It doesn’t cost the jurisdictions anything and it really does take a whole lot of time to set it up, so the value that you get from the system is very helpful.” - Nyrma Soffel, Office Manager, City of Harrisonburg (VA), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar

SolarAPP+ makes the permit process easier

“We're looking at a 90% reduction in the solar permits that we have to touch and process.” - Carla Blackwell, director of Pima County, AZ Development Services, Automated Permitting with SolarAPP+
“It's made things a whole lot easier as far as process. We don't have contractors coming to us with incomplete plans or plans that are incorrect in some way.” - Geoff Simmons, Chief Building Official, Pleasant Hill (CA), Automated Permitting with SolarAPP+
“And so, with SolarAPP+ we: number 1) we save staff time; number 2) our turnaround time… with SolarAPP+, it's instantaneous. And our customers don't have to leave the comfort of their office or home, so they can go online, they can use SolarAPP+, they can immediately pay for their permit and they're good to go. It’s rare that you can find something that works as well, for all the parties involved” - John Alita, Deputy City Manager of Stockton (CA), as quoted from the Leadership Roundtable
“When regulations make it unnecessarily difficult for people to quickly install solar and storage systems, it hurts everyone. It hurts those who want to install solar. And it hurts communities across California, which are being negatively impacted by climate change. We need to make it easier for people to use renewable energy – that’s just a no-brainer. Expediting solar permitting is something we can do to make this a reality.” - Scott Wiener, Senator of California, District 11, from the Office of Senator Wiener
“Applications for residential solar permits have doubled in the last 12 months. We want to respond to the community by speeding up the permit process. Not just doing it quickly, but doing it well, without sacrificing safety. That is why we chose to partner with DOE and SolarAPP+” - Kate Gallegos, Mayor of Phoenix (AZ)
“We are seeing about 750 residential requests over the past 12 months, which is about double the number of applications we saw two years ago. When I ask people in industry what we can do to speed up deployment of solar, they ask, ‘Can you do permitting faster?’ We’re at about 30 days now. We want to get that permitted as fast as possible, but we don’t want to sacrifice safety, and we want to make sure we’re not just doing it quickly, but well. That’s why this partnership [with SolarAPP] was very attractive to me. We think it has the potential to expedite processing by about 50% of our requests, and we hope that your residents will feel like we are being responsive to their enthusiasm for solar” - Kate Gallegos, Mayor of Phoenix (AZ), SolarAPP+ Industry Roundtable
“The process the SolarAPP+ gives us on the inspection sheet is quite intensive and it’s great. Our inspectors love it and all the contractors that are using it, are doing better inspections. They are passing a lot better. They are making sure that everything is grounded like it’s supposed to be.” – Kimberly Norman-Rosedam, CBO, Town of Guilford (CT), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar
“It is obvious at this point the nearly instantaneous ability to issue these permits is what is most attractive to our customers as well as to our staff.” – Eric Browning, CBO, Denver, CO
“We can count on SolarAPP+ to update with code changes.” - Nyrma Soffel, Office Manager, City of Harrisonburg (VA), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar
“Adopting SolarAPP+ will save our customers a significant amount of time in the permitting process and help safely bring these important projects to the market quicker.” - Laura E. Aldrete, Executive Director of Denver, CO Community Planning and Development
“Our inspectors love the checklist.” - Nyrma Soffel, Office Manager, City of Harrisonburg (VA), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar

SolarAPP+ is focused on your community

“There has been such a good collaboration to create a different way to review these residential projects in a way that is outside the traditional plan review box but still covers the technical aspects.” - Geoff Simmons, Chief Building Official, Pleasant Hill (CA), as quoted from the Leadership Roundtable
“The first reason we decided to go with SolarAPP+ is the fact that it was created with involvement from cities from the get go. We know that our requirements, our compliance checklist, all of those things that we need in the review process have already been considered, so we know it works with local government.” - John Alita, Deputy City Manager of Stockton (CA), as quoted from the Leadership Roundtable
“With SolarAPP+ we we give a permit the same day…What that means is that it becomes less expensive for the installation, and we make solar much more available to communities– to low income communities in our city. That is something that is unbelievable. We are absolutely enjoying the process” - Regina Romero, Mayor of Tucson (AZ), as quoted from the Leadership Roundtable
“ The solar industry currently employs over 350,000 people and growing... [SolarAPP+] is going to allow us - along with many other plans the administration has - to even increase that number even more in creating more jobs in our community” - Will Jawando, Council member, Montgomery County (MD), as quoted from the Leadership Roundtable
“Local leaders can use SolarAPP+ to ensure a high quality and efficient solar permitting process for buildings and their communities. The seamless solar permitting process of SolarAPP+ improves the effectiveness of local government staff. But more importantly, this efficiency translates to better services for residents, local businesses, and industries” - Clarence Anthony, CEO and Executive Director of the National League of Cities, Cities Choose SolarAPP+
“We appreciate that residents and businesses want to install solar and programs like SolarAPP+ make the process efficient so they can get their new solar systems up and running as quickly as possible. That’s the kind of innovation we work hard to bring to the Menifee community.” - Armando Villa, Mayor of Menifee (CA), Canyon Lake Insider
“SolarAPP+ was very accommodating in terms of making the modifications and providing the verifications that we asked for within SolarAPP+, so that the contractors who are using it specific to Denver can select the right criteria. So we have within the Denver- specific SolarAPP+ options been able to customize [the tool].” – Eric Browning, CBO, Denver (CO), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar
“We are seeing an increase in adoption of the use of the SolarAPP+ tool and that is of great benefit for our customers.” – Eric Browning, CBO, Denver (CO), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar

SolarAPP+ is working towards a better, more sustainable tomorrow

"We use SolarAPP+ as an immediate, affordable, necessary step toward changing our current systems to usher in a greener future" - Carla Blackwell, director of Pima County, AZ Development Services, as quoted in SaurEnergy
“I am excited to bring SolarAPP+ to our community, as it’s a vital tool to continue our national climate leadership…SolarAPP+ would be a benefit to our entire Bay Area community” - Jesse Arreguin, Mayor, City of Berkeley (CA), President of Bay Area Governance, Cities Choose SolarAPP+
“I am excited for SolarAPP+ and its efforts to streamline the permitting process for simpler solar installations. Solar energy is important to achieve our renewable energy goals, but it also supports local economic development, it helps combat climate change, and helps modernize the electric grid ” – Bryan Osorio, Mayor, City of Delano (CA), Cities Choose SolarAPP+
“At the end of the day, you’re always going to have to pay your electricity bill. The biggest difference here is you’re paying for clean energy versus whatever else you use” - Laura Morales, Silver Spring Homeowner, interview with Montgomery Community Media
““Pima County and the City of Tucson, Arizona believe that all cities, states, counties, and localities must act in the fight against climate change, for healthier futures for all their residents. We use SolarAPP+ as an immediate, affordable, necessary step toward changing our current systems to usher in a greener future.” - Carla Blackwell, director of Pima County, AZ Development Services, Solar Builder
“We hope SolarAPP will help us reach out net zero energy goals, which are quite ambitious, and being the fastest growing city in the country, we need to keep innovating if we want to do our part in climate change” - Kate Gallegos, Mayor of Phoenix (AZ), SolarAPP+ Industry Roundtable

SolarAPP+ is easy to use

“[I]t was a fairly straightforward process to integrate SolarAPP+ into OpenGov once we had the parameters for our city established. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) was great to work with, and getting feedback from the solar installer community was essential to working out any pitfalls. It only took a few application walk-throughs to work out the application-to-permitting process, with payment and permit issuance working as expected.” - Jonathan Schellin, management Analyst at the city of Benicia (CA), interview with GovTech
“We appreciate working with SolarAPP+ to get an app that’s as broadly applicable as possible, because we want to get those projects permitted and get to changing our city for the better” - Kate Gallegos, Mayor of Phoenix (AZ), SolarAPP+ Industry Roundtable
“With all the questions that we’ve had with my chief that’s over electrical and with my structural team, the SolarAPP+ team has always been there to answer those questions.” - Byron King, CBO, Houston (TX), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar
"Easier, safer, and quicker for solar projects to be approved, while also benefiting the contractors and the homeowners at the same time.” – Kimberly Norman-Rosedam, CBO, Town of Guilford (CT), ICC Adopting SolarAPP+ Webinar
"NREL and the SolarAPP+ Team supported the City of Berkeley’s implementation every step of the way. With their help, they ensured we were able to successfully launch the platform on-time. They have listened to our feedback, post launch, on how to improve its function." - Kurt Hurley, Program Manager - Green Building, Planning and Development Department, Berkeley (CA)