What Is Interconnection?

A system can be fully, physically installed on a homeowner's roof and still not producing a single watt of usable power, because interconnection is a separate utility-approval process that happens after installation, not during it. Only once the utility issues Permission to Operate is the system legally allowed to send or draw power from the grid.

This gap between "installed" and "operating" is one of the most common sources of homeowner frustration after a solar sale closes, precisely because it is invisible during the sales conversation itself. A homeowner who was never told these are two separate milestones reasonably assumes something has gone wrong when their new panels aren't producing power the week after the crew leaves.

Setting that expectation costs a sales rep nothing and belongs in the original consultation, not in a post-installation phone call fielding a confused or frustrated homeowner.