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U.S. seeks to speed rooftop solar growth with instant permits:
The Solar Automated Permit Processing (SolarAPP+) platform, developed by DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, will be an optional portal for local governments to process permit applications automatically.
Approvals typically take a week or more currently, and permit-related costs can account for about a third of installers' overall costs, DOE said. The software speeds the process up by standardizing requirements, streamlining the application and automating some approvals.
Administration officials said the software will help speed adoption of rooftop solar and achieve President Joe Biden's goal of decarbonizing the U.S. electricity grid by 2035, a key pillar of his plan to address climate change. DOE has said that solar energy will need to be installed at a pace as much as five times faster than it is today to realize that goal.
[...] The portal performs an automatic review of permit applications, approving eligible systems instantly. Complex or ineligible systems are re-routed for additional review.
Local governments will not have to pay for the portal, DOE said. DOE is challenging 125 mayors and local officials to sign up for the SolarAPP tool before the end of the summer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bussdriver on Wednesday July 21 2021, @09:37PM (2 children)
There are a couple TV series with this guy...Mike Holmes where the whole thing is about people getting screwed from contractors and inspectors NOT doing their jobs correctly OR HONESTLY.
People are supposed to TRUST that you didn't sell them a moldy death trap??
Sure their payed inspector might spot things but unless they rip some shit open they need to be around during the process to see something is not being easily hidden. We need permits, regulations, and inspectors for a good reason and yes like EVERYTHING they have greedy corrupt and dishonest people. The problem is that many humans just suck. You have some bad humans that make it a problem for all of us so we hire and require other humans to mitigate the bad humans and naturally, those humans have a % that suck and the oversight of those humans 3rd level removed have some humans that suck... the whole system is designed by politicians and that power attract even more people who suck and half the electorate love to vote for people who really suck... because they suck at voting to the point they'll destroy democracy...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @02:56AM
There's something particularly revolting about the off-spring of senior politicians.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @04:29AM
When we did construction, we had a number of contractors that offered to do the construction without pulling permits. Those we declined. A different contractor built in time to their estimated schedule specifically to redo work for failing the inspections at various steps. When I asked him about it, he replied "everybody fails and has to fix it." After that I got curious and put in a FOIA request to our city department that does permits. Turns out that most companies and licensees don't have to redo work ever, but that there are serial offenders that routinely fail the first pass. Interestingly enough, it also turned out that people who had unpermitted work done tend also have the work redone as part of closing or in less than 5 years anyway. Which means that they don't really end up saving money in the long run.