Understanding the Differences Between Residential and Commercial Solar Permit Plan Sets

Solar permit plan sets serve as the essential bridges to connect solar installers and Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJs) for the permission to install solar panels in both residential and commercial areas. Residential regions include single-family dwellings, apartments, condominiums, duplex housing, etc, while commercial buildings include hospitals, shopping compounds, office areas, warehouses, etc. You may now wonder about the differences between residential and commercial solar permit plan sets.

Required Equipment

Both commercial and residential solar permission plan sets have various equipment specifications based on pre-existing systems. Commercial solar projects typically involve more complicated power equipment than residential systems, such as multiple solar combiner boxes, batteries, and inverters in the design. 

Types of Roofs' Capabilities for Panel Areas

As you may expect, commercial buildings have larger panel areas than residential buildings to produce more power for the increased energy demand in the plan sets. Thus, they usually have stronger steel roofs that can sustain, on average, the weight of 70 solar panels as opposed to the bulk of residential structures with wooden roofs that can hold around 20 solar panels to satisfy their complete energy needs. 

Prevention Ways for Shaded Areas

Commercial buildings with larger flat roofs and open land spaces usually have more places to install solar panels than residential ones. However, when the shading area is too large, commercial buildings may require the sub-structure to cover the necessary system capacity, whereas residential structures can simply relocate panels on the same sloped roofs.

Difficulty Level of Getting A Permit

It is obvious that commercial solar projects mostly require plan sets that are generally more sophisticated than those for residential projects. Therefore, depending on the system's complexity, the commercial plan sets which need additional documentation such as construction drawings of larger arrays, numerous inverters, and electrical calculations approved by several departments and agencies are more challenging to get a permit than the residential plan sets.

You can just click here to read more about solar plan set permits and view the actual example created by Indigo Energy.