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Six stages, three different organisations, and only some of the waiting is the utility's fault.
Most of the anxiety in a solar interconnection comes from not knowing who is holding it. The permit office, the utility and your installer each own different stages, and chasing the wrong one wastes weeks. This places you in the sequence, names who has the ball, and tells you whether the wait has actually become unusual.
What this returns at the defaults
At the defaults — 45 days since application, 38 of them in utility review against a 30-day target — you are in stage 2 of 6, the utility holds it, and the stage is at 127% of target. That is the point at which a written status request is reasonable. The single most common cause of a silent stall at this stage is an incomplete application, which is worth confirming before escalating.
Last updated . Data as of 5 September 2026.
Your own dates, and your own utility's published target.
Compares against the target you entered. HyreSolar publishes no national interconnection timetable.
Not legal advice and not a complaint procedure. HyreSolar does not sell systems and has no relationship with your utility.
Knowing who holds it is worth more than knowing how long it has taken. Three organisations touch a residential interconnection and they do not talk to each other on your behalf. A homeowner chasing the utility while the file is actually sitting with their installer awaiting an install date will get polite, accurate, useless answers for weeks.
The overdue judgement uses your utility's target, not ours. We publish no national timetable, because interconnection deadlines are set state by state and utility by utility, and a stale figure here would be actively harmful — you would use it to decide whether to escalate. Enter the target from your own utility's interconnection handbook and the comparison becomes real.
An elapsed total is not a problem on its own. A hundred days from application to permission to operate can be entirely normal if it includes an install, a permit inspection and a meter change. What matters is whether any single stage has run long, which is why the tool asks for both figures.
Every input below is a number you can find, not one you have to guess. This is where each one comes from.
The interconnection application, not the contract signing and not the site survey. These are frequently weeks apart and the clock that matters starts at submission.
Where to find it Your installer submits it on your behalf in most states. Ask them for the submission date, or check the utility interconnection portal if you have a login.
Six stages, and the boundaries matter. "Approved to install" and "installed" are separated by your installer’s schedule, which is not the utility’s responsibility.
Where to find it The utility portal if you have one. Otherwise your installer should be able to say precisely which stage you are in, and an installer who cannot is itself a signal.
This is the figure that decides whether something has gone wrong. A long total with short stages is normal; a short total with one very long stage is not.
Where to find it The date of the last status change. If nobody can tell you when the stage started, use the date of the last communication you received.
Most utilities publish a review target in their interconnection handbook or tariff. This is the number your queue is actually governed by, and it is why the tool does not supply one.
Where to find it Your utility’s interconnection handbook, its net metering or DER tariff, or the rule your state regulator has adopted. Ask your installer — they submit these constantly and will know.
The action changes completely depending on whether the utility, your installer or the building department has the file.
Where to find it The output names it. Chase that organisation, not the one you have a phone number for.
Not because anyone is acting in bad faith, but because a written request creates the record you will need if the matter goes to your state regulator.
Where to find it Email is sufficient. Copy your installer on anything you send to the utility.
Six stages from application to permission to operate, each with a defined owner.
The utility, your installer, or the local building department. Only the utility stages are governed by an interconnection target.
Days in the current stage against the figure you entered from your own utility. Reported as a percentage so the margin is legible.
Different for each holder, and different again once the target has passed.
The formula, in full
stage position = 1–6. overdue = days in current stage > your utility's published target. percentage = days in stage ÷ target × 100. The elapsed total since application is reported but never used to judge whether a stage is late.
A homeowner 45 days after their installer submitted the application, still without an approval to install. Their utility’s handbook publishes a 30-day review target.
Inputs
Result
127% of target — a written status request is reasonable
Forty-five days in total is unremarkable. Thirty-eight of them in a single stage against a 30-day target is not. The right move is a written request to the utility for a status and a date, copied to the installer — and before that, one specific check: ask whether the application was ever accepted as complete. An application returned for missing information can sit in a portal looking submitted while no review clock is running at all, and that is the most common reason a stage silently overruns.
The same project at each stage of the sequence. Every row is computed by the tool on this page.
| Situation | Stage | Who holds it | Against target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base case45 days in, 38 in review, 30-day target | Under utility review | The utility | 127% of target |
| Same, but 18 days in the stage | Under utility review | The utility | Within the 30-day target |
| Approved, 12 days waiting on an install date | Approved to install | Your installer | Within the 30-day target |
| Installed, 21 days awaiting inspection | Installed, awaiting inspection | The building department | Within the 30-day target |
| Inspection passed, 41 days awaiting PTO | Inspection passed, awaiting PTO | The utility | 137% of target |
| Permission to operate received | PTO received | Complete — nothing outstanding | complete |
Read rows three and four. In both, the utility is not the holder — the file is with the installer’s scheduling and then with the local inspector. A homeowner phoning the utility during either stage is chasing an organisation that is correctly doing nothing. Note too that the last utility stage is where projects most often stall unnoticed: the system is physically installed and inspected, the homeowner assumes it is finished, and the meter change or PTO letter sits unissued for weeks.
Ranked. A proposal can change any of these without saying anything untrue, so these are the inputs to check first.
The dominant cause of a stalled review, and invisible from outside. An application returned for missing information can look submitted in a portal while no review clock runs. Confirm acceptance before escalating anything.
Three of the six stages are not the utility’s, and chasing the wrong one is the most common way a homeowner loses weeks. The tool exists mainly to answer this.
A bidirectional meter swap is a separate field visit with its own scheduling, and it sits inside the final utility stage. It is a frequent and largely invisible cause of a long wait after inspection.
Entirely outside both the utility and your installer. A busy jurisdiction can add weeks at stage four and no amount of chasing the utility changes it.
Some states impose tariffed deadlines on utility review; others do not. Where a deadline exists, a missed one is an enforceable matter rather than a service complaint — worth knowing before you escalate.
Any national timetable, any typical duration, any prediction of how long yours will take. We have no retrievable dataset for those and a fabricated benchmark would be used to make a real decision about whether to escalate.
You will get accurate, polite answers that change nothing, because the file is not with them. Read the holder first.
They can be weeks apart. The interconnection clock starts when the application is submitted and accepted, not when you signed.
A hundred days spanning an install, an inspection and a meter change can be entirely normal. One stage running long is the signal; the total is not.
It is not, and this is where projects most often go quiet. Until permission to operate is issued you may not legally export, and switching on regardless can put you in breach of your interconnection agreement.
It is the first question, and asking it costs nothing. Escalating a file that was returned for missing information wastes the escalation and delays the fix.
Not because phone calls are ignored, but because they leave no record. If the matter eventually reaches your state regulator, a written trail is what you will be asked for.
We will not publish a national figure, and you should be sceptical of any tool that does without naming the utility. Interconnection deadlines are set state by state and utility by utility, and a stale benchmark is worse than none because you would use it to decide whether to escalate. Your utility publishes a review target in its interconnection handbook — that number governs your queue, and it is the one this tool compares against.
One of three organisations, depending on the stage. The utility holds application review and permission to operate. Your installer holds the gap between approval and installation. The local building department holds inspection. Three of the six stages are not the utility’s, which is why homeowners so often spend weeks chasing the wrong organisation.
First, ask whether it was accepted as complete — an application returned for missing information can sit looking submitted while no review clock runs, and this is the most common cause of a silent stall. If it was accepted and the stage has passed your utility’s published target, send a written request for a status and a date, copied to your installer.
Because permission to operate has not been issued. Until it is, you have no agreement permitting you to export, and energising anyway can put you in breach of your interconnection agreement and can complicate a later claim. This stage often includes a bidirectional meter change, which is a separate field visit with its own scheduling.
Rarely by asking. Utilities generally process interconnection applications in queue order and will not accelerate one on request. What you can do is remove the reasons for delay: confirm the application is complete, respond to any information request the same day, and make sure your installer has supplied everything asked for. Where your state imposes a tariffed deadline and it has been missed, that is a regulator matter rather than a service request.
Because the honest alternative is a 50-state table we cannot retrieve or keep current. Interconnection rules live in state regulator dockets and dozens of individual utility handbooks. A homeowner using an out-of-date deadline to decide whether to escalate would be worse served than one who looked up their own — so we ask you to look up your own.
Usually yes, and often materially. Storage frequently triggers additional review, sometimes a different application path, and occasionally an engineering study. If a battery was added to your design after the application was submitted, expect the clock to restart rather than continue.
The interconnection application is generally in your name with the installer acting as agent, so it does not disappear with them — but somebody has to take over the submissions, the responses and the inspection. Our piece on what to do when your installer closes covers the practical steps.
Yes, more than most homeowners expect. It is commonly the start date for equipment warranties, it is the date your export tariff attaches to, and in several states it determines which version of a net metering rule applies to you. Keep the letter.
Every assumption in this calculator is argued from primary sources somewhere in our research library. These are the pages that matter for this one.
Screens a system against your utility map and the 15% fast-track rule. Shows why the feeder, not your roof, decides.
Simple cash payback from size, $/W, rate and self-consumption. Default federal credit is 0%.
kW DC from annual kWh, peak sun hours and a derate. Not a shade-aware design.
Actual results depend on roof, usage, utility rules and a real proposal. Matching is still being built. The form is an enquiry, not a dispatch line.
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Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the statute, the tariff, the code section, the federal filing or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. That rule has cost us whole sections, and it is the reason the rest can be trusted.
How this desk works
Data as of 5 September 2026. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.