To be eligible for the Oregon Residential Energy Tax Credit (RETC), projects must have passed jurisdictional inspection on or before April 1, 2018. As a result of the high volume of solar projects—in addition to other eligible energy technologies—that submitted applications before the December 31, 2017, deadline, jurisdictional inspectors are expected to have a high volume of inspections called over the next week.

Energy Trust notified cities and counties of the anticipated increase in inspection requests based on the volume of applications in our system. Jurisdictions stated that they would be able to handle the increased volume but requested that we encourage solar trade allies to submit requests for inspection “as soon as possible” to ensure there are no delays in scheduling and provide time to address any corrections necessary.

The City of Portland has taken an additional step to allow scheduling inspections on Saturdays for solar projects in addition to normal weekday inspections. To sign up for a Saturday inspection appointment, Solar trade allies must call 503.823.7388 by 3 p.m. on the Thursday prior to the requested Saturday inspection date.