US nonprofits to develop new solar permit software to reduce costs and expand residential markets

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and The Solar Foundation are joining the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), several national residential solar companies, and other nonprofit organisations to develop new automated permit software for distributed solar and storage, reducing the cost of solar installations and saving resources for local governments and taxpayers. NREL was awarded $695,000 in new funding from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions, Technology Commercialisation Fund to develop and deploy the Solar Automated Permit Processing (SolarAPP) software platform. The intent is to dramatically reduce the time and cost of the permitting application review and approval process, which in turn will decrease customer cancellation rates and expand solar energy development and solar job growth nationwide.