From Signed PPA to Site Survey: GuideCX vs Arrows for Solar EPCs

Utility interconnection timelines are largely outside your control, so starting that application the day the contract is signed, not after the site survey, is usually the most valuable single action you can take in the first week. Waiting on this step is one of the most common reasons a commercial project's total timeline runs long, since a delayed application start simply pushes the utility's own review window further out on the calendar.

This runs in parallel with the interconnection application, not after it. Confirm who has facility access authority, whether the survey needs escort, and what electrical documentation the site team should bring, so the survey doesn't get pushed a week because nobody confirmed access in advance and the survey crew shows up to a locked gate.

Permit requirements vary enough by jurisdiction that this step often needs its own owner, someone tracking exactly what the local authority requires rather than assuming it matches the last project. Missing a jurisdiction-specific requirement here is a common source of permit delays that show up weeks later, after everything else looked on track, which makes an early, dedicated review of local requirements worth the time it takes.

With three parallel workstreams (interconnection, site survey, permitting) each with its own timeline and owner, GuideCX's structured project template is built for exactly this kind of coordination, letting a project manager see all three tracks for every active project on one dashboard rather than checking each separately across different notebooks or spreadsheets.

A smaller EPC running fewer concurrent projects, or one where a single project manager personally tracks all three workstreams, may find Arrows's simpler shared page enough: a list the project owner can check for status, without the overhead of a full multi-track project template. Confirm in a demo whether it handles three parallel workstreams as cleanly as a linear checklist, since that's the real test of fit here.

Interconnection and the site survey tend to generate visible activity, calls, scheduled visits, status emails from the utility, while permitting can sit quietly in the background without anyone noticing it hasn't moved in two weeks. Give permitting the same explicit check-in cadence as the other two workstreams, rather than letting it fall behind simply because it's the one that doesn't demand attention on its own.

A commercial project owner signing their first solar or energy contract often doesn't realize how much of the overall timeline sits outside your control once the interconnection application is with the utility. Setting that expectation clearly during onboarding, rather than letting the owner assume every delay is on your side, tends to prevent a frustrated call later that could have been avoided with one honest conversation up front about what's actually in your control and what isn't.

Because utility and permitting timelines can shift for reasons outside your control, a status update that states a hard completion date with too much confidence can backfire when that date moves. A better approach is reporting the current status of each of the three workstreams honestly, along with what's known and what's still pending, rather than committing to dates the utility or permitting authority hasn't actually confirmed.

This matters even more for a portfolio of smaller commercial sites. An EPC contracting several smaller rooftop or ground-mount systems for one owner, a retail chain or a light industrial landlord, faces a different coordination problem than a single large project: each site needs its own interconnection application and permit, but the owner usually wants one combined view of progress across the whole portfolio. Confirm during onboarding whether the owner expects that rolled-up view, since building it after the fact is more work than planning for it from the start.

Run the early weeks of a commercial solar project in this order:

1. Start the interconnection application the day the contract is signed, before the site survey, because the utility's review window sets the pace for the whole project.
2. Schedule the site survey in parallel, confirming who has facility access authority, whether the crew needs an escort, and which electrical documentation to bring.
3. Give permitting its own owner who tracks exactly what the local jurisdiction requires instead of assuming it matches the last project.
4. Hold permitting to the same check-in cadence as the other two workstreams so the quietest track doesn't stall unnoticed.
5. Report each workstream's status honestly, including what is known and what is pending, rather than promising dates the utility controls.