A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Plan Sets: Everything You Need to Know

A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Plan Sets: Everything You Need to Know

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Whether it’s your first design or 100th installation, creating new, unique, compliant, and accurate plan sets for PV and energy storage projects is one of the most laborious and important aspects of the project.  Without high-quality solar plan sets, you may run the risk of being denied permit and interconnection approval with local authorities, leading to project delays, increased costs, and a handful of avoidable headaches.  In this article, we’ll cover the basics of PV plan sets and take a deep dive into the solar permitting process to prepare you for your next project. 

What is a PV plan set? An integral part of the installation process, a plan set is a package of drawings and data sheets that outline the details of a proposed installation. This typically includes a project’s address or location, electrical components, and structural information, engineering calculations, labels, and placards. You can think of a plan set as the blueprint for a solar installation, the way a construction crew uses blueprints to build a house, and installation team uses the plan set to install a solar system. The plan set is the source of truth for multiple parties to align on, it’s used with the AHJ for permitting and inspection, utility for interconnection approval, financiers for confirming funds are used as intended, installation teams for performing the work, and even homeowners for final approval and setting expectations of the installation. Click above to see how you can get accurate, permit-ready plan sets with no hassle from Aurora.

Why is a solar plan set necessary? A plan set is the key component to efficient post sale operations. A quality plan set, with precise and accurate information in it, means that every step of the post sale work flow is faster and easier: permitting, installation, inspection, and permission to operate. By creating high-quality solar plan set drawings that adhere to local building and electrical codes, you can assure your customers that their system has been approved as safe to operate with local authorities, and that your installation teams will be able to quickly and effectively install the system.

PV plan sets are instrumental   A proposal design that’s presented to the homeowner at time of sale typically just focuses on the layout of the modules, how much power they expect to produce, and how much savings the homeowner can expect. The plan set design will follow the proposal or sold design, as much as possible while accounting for AHJ requirements, site survey information, such as structural and electrical considerations, mounting hardware limitations, etc. In instances where the plan set design is different than the sold design, the homeowner should be signing off on the changes. Plan sets are just one aspect of a solar project; click above to walk through how to design a system from start to finish.

PV plan sets and permitting In recent years, adapting to the volume of distributed energy systems being installed, many AHJs have been adopting more streamlined and even instant permitting methods that don’t require a full plan set for getting a permit. AHJ’s like Clark County NV and Los Angeles CA, and tools like SolarAPP+, have made it so standard projects with approved equipment can be permitted without needing a full traditional plan set.However, most AHJs still require them to issue a permit, and the need for installation and inspections makes having a plan set necessary.    National solar plan set requirements  Within the United States there aren’t nationally set requirements for AHJs and contractors to adhere to, it’s up to the individual states to decide for each of their jurisdictions. There are, however, National Electrical Code (NEC) and International building codes (I-Codes, IFC, IRC, IBC, etc) that are written and released every three years for rules and guidance for the various building and safety authorities to adopt. Rules such as NEC 690 and IFC1204 and 1205 are some of the most known sections. They dictate items such as electrical disconnecting means, wiring configurations, and fire access pathways. The rules and references can, and often do, change from code year to code year, both in the reference number and what rules to adhere to.The building codes also leave a lot of space for interpretation for the local building official to use their discretion on what would be safe. The NEC and I-Codes will get adopted over time by each jurisdiction. Some states like California will take the I-Codes, make modifications to them for their unique needs, and publish them as the California Building Codes. Then, cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles will take it a step further and publish their local city codes. State & local solar plan set requirements On a local level, individual states, counties, cities, towns, home owners associations, and even neighborhoods, such as historic districts, throughout the United States have varying requirements for solar installations that need to be accounted for on plan sets. Depending on the AHJ for your project site, your design may have to incorporate certain local rules like fire pathways, electrical disconnect and conduit requirements, maximum system sizes, which roofs can have solar panels… the list goes on and on. Wondering what’s the deal with fire pathways? We’ve got you covered. There are more than 30,000 unique AHJs in the United States, and they all have multiple individuals working in the building and planning departments, which can mean nearly countless variables to account for. This is why most solar installers track AHJ requirements utilizing an AHJ database, such as the feature Aurora recently released, so that their teams can store and reference any requirements that they need to follow.

What do solar plan sets include? Like everything in the solar industry, the exact components of your PV plans vary by location, equipment configuration, AHJ requirements, etc., and may look slightly different for every business. To give you a better idea of what you’ll need, here are the basic things your solar plan set should include. 

  1. Title page Outlining the project location, scope of work to be performed, property owner and contractor information, and building codes that the plan set design is adhering to.
  2. Site plan  The first of many solar permit drawings, a site plan clearly defines the property’s characteristics such as size, orientation, and roof shape. Drawn to scale from an aerial perspective, site plan drawings should show the roof and PV system layout, fire pathways, wiring path and point of interconnection, address, and often property lines, and the street the front of the house is on.
  3. Roof plan Zooming in a bit, your roof plan (or roof layout) includes more detail about the location of your solar panels, wiring configuration, and mounting system details, such as rails and attachment points, and the underlying rafter or structural layout.Many AHJs will require structural engineer stamps from a licensed professional engineer. These stamps are typically included on the roof plan.
  4. Structural details A cross section view of the modules, mounting system, roof, and structural details, the structural details page will show how the roof structure is built, and how the modules are attached to it. They are sometimes accompanied by structural calculations from a structural engineer.
  5. Ground plan Of course, when you’re installing ground mounted solar panels, you won’t need a roof plan. Instead, the parts and wiring designs are detailed in a ground plan, or included in the site plan. Ground plan details will often have to show details for above ground modules and framing, and underground items, like trenching, plumbing such as septic tanks and leach fields, zoning setbacks from property lines, and in some cases topography and soil details.
  6. Single-line diagram Also known as an SLD or a one-line diagram, a single-line diagram shows AHJs, installers, utilities, and building inspectors how all of the electrical components of your system are connected. With solar panel wiring basics in mind, single-line diagrams clearly illustrate how your system will generate electricity and safely send it to the grid. A single-line diagram is needed by most AHJs and utilities, however some require a three-line diagram.
  7. Three-line diagram Looking fairly similar, but with more detail than a one-line diagram, a three-line diagram depicts all of the positive, negative, neutral, and ground conductors in your PV electrical system. (Whereas a single-line diagram will typically group some or all of the wires together visually to more simply show the path of the

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