Panorama City, CA · November 2021 – January 2022 · LADWP / LADBS

Back on site in five days. A correction on the final, cleared.

Twenty-four microinverters went on in early December and reported the same afternoon. Two days later the final inspection came back with a correction, and the five days that followed are what separates a fast solar project from a slow one.

Written by the Cali Energy project team · California contractor license 1032379 · Updated September 2026

A correction on a solar final inspection is an ordinary event, not a failure of the installation. The inspector writes what has to change, the contractor does the work and requests a re-inspection, and the permit closes on the second visit. What decides whether that costs a week or a month is how quickly the crew gets back and whether the utility's own review is running in parallel rather than waiting behind it. On this Panorama City project, inside the City of Los Angeles, Cali Energy was back on site five days after the correction was written, requested the re-inspection the following morning, and the utility approved the installation six days after that.

At a glance

Recorded by the utility

8.9 kW AC-CEC

Array

24 modules, one microinverter under each

Main service panel

Retained — 200 A combination meter and main

Utility service

Overhead; meter change only

Battery

None

Final inspection

Corrected, then passed on re-inspection

First contact to permission to operate

38 days

Utility / AHJ

LADWP / LADBS

The story

This project had no service upgrade in it, which is the first thing that made it fast. The house already carried a two hundred amp combination meter and main, the kind that puts the meter socket and the breakers behind one cover, and the utility classified the work as a meter change and nothing more. No new panel, no new mast, no trench.

That enclosure is worth a sentence of its own, because it is the reason this project had no service work in it. A combination meter and main carries a twenty-two thousand amp short-circuit rating and forty breaker spaces behind one cover, and its own label says it is suitable only for use as service equipment and only on an overhead service. Both of those were already true here. The solar breaker had somewhere to go, so nothing had to be torn off the wall and nothing had to be scheduled with the utility beyond the meter itself.

The proposal went out at the end of November. The interconnection application was filed on the first of December and the utility's recovery charge was paid the next morning, which is the step that moves an application from received to actually under review. The city inspection was requested on the third.

Installation was on the sixth. Twenty-four microinverters, one under each module, and by two o'clock that afternoon the monitoring gateway was reporting all twenty-four as detected, communicating, profiled and producing. That matters more than it sounds: a system that reports on installation day has no commissioning tail, and nothing later has to be scheduled to chase it.

The next day the utility did three things at once. It confirmed the application, waived the pre-construction site visit and granted permission to install — three notices, one date. On a project under twenty kilowatts that review is done from the photographs uploaded with the application, and when the photographs are complete it collapses into a single morning.

Those three notices are not a formality. The first says the application has been received and is under review. The second says the details have been confirmed and an assessment is either scheduled or waived. The fourth says an Electric Service Representative has cleared the site and the system may be built. A project waits on each of them in turn, and a complete photograph package is what lets all three land on the same morning instead of across three separate weeks.

Then the city inspector arrived, and the final came back with a correction.

Here is the thing to understand about a correction. It is not a verdict on the array. An inspector signs off a photovoltaic system against the electrical code, and the parts of that code that most often generate a correction are not about modules or rails at all. They are about grounding and bonding: the continuity of metal that is never meant to carry current, and the path it takes back to the service.

The crew went back on the thirteenth. The work of that day was at the gas service: flexible conduit and a bonding conductor crimped into place. It took one visit.

The re-inspection was requested the following morning. On the twentieth the utility approved the installation, which is the notice that releases the meter order. The net meter went on and permission to operate was granted on the sixth of January.

The seventeen days between those two dates are the part nobody controls. A meter order goes into a construction district queue and a crew comes out when it comes out, and this particular queue ran across Christmas and New Year. Seventeen days over the holidays is a good outcome for that step, and it is the one stretch of the calendar where the only useful thing a contractor can do is have everything else already finished.

Thirty-eight days from the proposal to a running system, with a correction in the middle of it. The correction cost five days, and the reason it cost only five is that the utility's review had never been waiting on the city in the first place. Those two processes overlap by design, and a project that treats them as a queue instead of two parallel tracks loses weeks it never needed to lose.

If you are comparing installers, ask one question about corrections: how fast do you get back. Every contractor collects them. The difference is measured in days.

How it ran

The correction sat on the critical path for five days. Everything on either side of it ran without a second visit.

What we did

• Filed the interconnection the day after the proposal was accepted and paid the utility's recovery charge the following morning (C-10).
• Installed twenty-four modules and twenty-four microinverters in one day and commissioned the monitoring before leaving the site.
• Returned to the property five days after the correction was written and completed the bonding work in a single visit.
• Requested the re-inspection the next morning rather than waiting for the next scheduling window.
• Carried the interconnection through to the net meter without a second correction from either the city or the utility.

System specifications

Is your project like this one?

• Your solar final came back with a correction and nobody has told you what happens next.
• Your contractor says the utility is waiting on the city, or the other way around.
• Your house already has a combination meter and main and you have been quoted a panel upgrade anyway.
• You want to know what grounding and bonding actually means on a solar permit.
• Your Panorama City property is served by LADWP, while permits are handled by LADBS.

Cali Energy in Panorama City

Frequently asked questions

Is a correction on a solar final inspection a bad sign?

No. It is a normal step. The inspector lists what has to change, the contractor does it and asks for a re-inspection, and most permits close on the second visit. A correction becomes a problem only when nobody returns to clear it, which is why the question to ask a contractor is how quickly they get back, not whether they ever collect corrections.

What gets corrected most often on a residential solar final?

Grounding and bonding, by a wide margin. Modules and racking are visible and easy to build correctly; the continuity of metal that is never meant to carry current is easier to miss and quicker to check. It is also cheap to fix once identified, which is why these corrections usually cost days rather than weeks.

Does the utility wait for the city to finish?

Not for its own review. The interconnection review and the building department's inspection run in parallel, and the utility only needs the city's electronic release at the end, before it will set the meter. A project that treats the two as a single queue adds weeks to itself for no reason.

Can a solar project skip the main panel upgrade?

Often, yes. If the existing service equipment can accept the solar breaker within what the code allows to be fed into a busbar, nothing has to be replaced. Here the house had a two hundred amp combination meter and main already, the utility classified the job as a meter change, and no service work was done at all.

Does Cali Energy work in Panorama City?

Yes. On this Panorama City project Cali Energy filed the interconnection, installed twenty-four modules in a day, returned within five days to clear the inspector's correction and carried the job through to permission to operate thirty-eight days after the proposal. California contractor license number 1032379.

What this would look like on your roof

Related

• Twenty-nine days from filing to permission to operate Panorama City, CA · 2.9 kW AC-CEC · 9 modules, no corrections Solar
• Two meters on one wall. One roof, and one day on it Panorama City, CA · 400 W modules · two services, one array Solar
• The array went up first. The permit was still in correction Woodland Hills, CA · 14.4 kW DC · a failed final and a second permit Solar
• The final failed over three feet Granada Hills, CA · 31 modules · appeal or rebuild, and why rebuild won Solar

This timeline reflects this property and this permitting path. Updated September 2026.