Learn/How a job runs

What happens after the contract is signed

After a residential solar contract is signed, the job moves through a fixed sequence before it can be switched on: survey, design, permit, interconnection, install, inspection, then permission to operate (PTO). The order never changes. How long each step takes, and who is holding it, does.

Written by Ari Arora, Founder & CEO · Last reviewed October 2026

AT A GLANCE

Survey, design, permit, install, inspection, interconnection, PTO: the order is fixed.

The city and the utility set the pace on two of the steps. You set it on the rest.

The money arrives in milestones tied to these events, not at signing.

The sequence, and who controls each step

The order is fixed. What changes is how long each step takes and who is holding it.

Site survey. The surveyor records the home as it is: roof, framing, panel, main breaker, meter, shading. The first place a sold job turns out to be a different job. You control the scheduling.
Final design and plan set. The design becomes a permit-ready package. If the survey contradicted the sale, the redesign happens here and resets what follows. You control this.
Permit. The city or county reviews and issues it. You control what you file. You do not control the queue.
Interconnection. The utility reviews the application to connect to the grid. A separate reviewer and a separate queue from the permit. Confusing the two is where "I thought that was approved" comes from.
Installation. The crew builds it. The step you are best at, and usually the shortest on the calendar.
Inspection. The inspector checks the installed system against the approved plans. Field changes that diverge from the plans fail here.
PTO. The utility grants permission to operate. Until it lands the system does not legally produce, and on TPO projects the last slice of your payment waits for it.

Why two jobs sold the same day finish weeks apart

Almost every step holds a queue you do not control, and queues do not run at a constant rate.

A permit office slows in a seasonal surge.
A utility backlog grows when a policy change pulls demand forward.
An inspector's calendar differs from one jurisdiction to the next.

Project duration is not a property of the job. It is the job plus the jurisdiction plus the moment.

Planning as if jobs take a fixed number of weeks is wrong in both directions. The fix is knowing, on any given day, which jobs are waiting and on whom.

What you control

Two things, and both compound across every job.

The quality of what you submit. Plan sets that match the survey, as-builts that match the approval, complete interconnection applications. A rejection costs more than the review time: it sends you to the back of the queue.
How fast you react. A correction notice that sits unread for four days is four days you added. Nobody decides to ignore it. It lands in one inbox while that person is busy.

You do not control the queues. Once a complete, correct application is in, the clock belongs to the reviewer. Effort spent chasing a utility is mostly wasted. Effort spent making sure nothing sits in your own building pays on every job.

Where the money sits in all of this

On TPO projects the payment schedule rides on this same sequence, and it does not pay evenly.

Contract pays nothing. You front design, permitting, equipment and labor.
Installation pays the bulk, after the financier approves the package.
PTO releases the holdback.

The two longest waits, permitting and interconnection before the install and PTO after it, are both stretches where you carry the cost. Across dozens of open jobs, those overlapping waits set how much cash is tied up on any given day.

A few good
questions.

How long does a residential solar project take after signing?

It varies more by jurisdiction than by job. The sequence is fixed (survey, final design, permitting, interconnection, install, inspection, PTO) but most of the elapsed time is spent in queues held by a city, a utility, or an inspector rather than by the installer. Two systems of identical size sold on the same day in different jurisdictions routinely finish weeks apart, which is why a fixed estimate is less useful than knowing which specific step each job is currently sitting in.

What is the difference between a permit and an interconnection approval?

They are separate approvals from separate authorities, running in parallel. The building permit comes from the authority having jurisdiction, usually a city or county building department, and covers the construction of the system. The interconnection approval comes from the utility and covers connecting that system to the grid. Having one does not imply the other, and assuming it does is a common cause of a job being reported as further along than it is.

What is PTO in solar?

PTO stands for permission to operate. It is the utility's formal approval to energize a finished, inspected system and connect it to the grid. Until PTO is granted the system cannot legally produce, and on third-party-owned projects the final portion of the installer's payment is typically held until it lands.

Which delays can an installer actually prevent?

The ones caused by what you submit and how fast you respond. Incomplete or inaccurate applications, plan sets that do not match the site survey, and as-built documentation that diverges from what was approved are the largest avoidable sources of delay, because a rejection sends the job to the back of the queue. Response time on corrections is the other one: a correction notice sitting unread in an inbox is delay the installer added. Review queue length itself is not preventable.

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