Town of Greenville

A city address is usually permitted by the city, not the county — but not always, and some authorities keep building and hand electrical to someone else. Getting this wrong costs the whole submittal, because every requirement below belongs to whoever actually holds jurisdiction. Check the overlays in the same pass: an HOA, a historic district, a windstorm certification or a system-size cap can reshape the design, and all of them are cheaper to find now than after the array is laid out.

• Is this authority the AHJ for residential solar at this address? No. The Town of Greenville is not the AHJ for residential solar. Building permits, electrical (trade) permits, plan review and inspections inside the Greenville town limits are issued and performed by the MADISON COUNTY Building Department, 229 SW Pinckney Street, Suite 219, Madison, FL 32340 (upstairs in the County Annex Building), 850-973-6785, Building Official Dennis Pitts. The county's own Building Department page states in words: 'Residents of the City of Madison must obtain permits and inspections at City Hall, located at 321 SW Rutledge Street, Madison, FL 32340. All other residents in Madison County can visit the second floor of the Madison County Annex Building at 229 SW Pinckney Street, Suite 219, Madison, FL 32340, for permits and inspections.' Greenville is not the City of Madison, so it falls in that second sentence. Town Hall for Greenville itself was searched for and could not be found: eight candidate domains (townofgreenvillefl.com/.org, greenvillefl.com/.org, cityofgreenvillefl.com, townofgreenvillefl.org, townofgreenville-fl.com, townofgreenville.com) either fail DNS resolution or resolve to something else entirely - greenvillefl.com is a parked-for-sale HugeDomains page, and townofgreenville.com is the Town of Greenville, WISCONSIN, not Florida. 92% · county department page
• What does this authority permit itself, and what does it delegate? Delegated. Greenville permits nothing itself - no building permit, no electrical permit, no plan review, no inspection, no published fee schedule, and no adopted construction code of its own that could be found anywhere online. Building AND electrical both sit with the Madison County Building Department (see q1). Land development/zoning is a separate and more uncertain question: Madison County's own Land Development Code Section 1.5 states 'The provisions of this Code shall apply to all land, buildings, structures and uses in the unincorporated areas of Madison County and to any other area authorized by law or interlocal agreement' - so the County's LDC does NOT reach incorporated Greenville unless an interlocal agreement extends it there, and no such agreement could be found (contrast Washington County, where the LDC is co-adopted by name by the Town Councils of Caryville, Ebro, Vernon and Wausau - Madison's LDC contains no comparable clause naming Greenville or Lee, the county's other town). Whether Greenville has any zoning ordinance of its own is unresolved: it has no website and no presence on Municode. 85% · land development code
• Is a permit required for a residential rooftop PV system? Yes, by inference rather than by an explicit PV line. Madison County's general Building Permit Application covers any residential construction/installation work ('Type of Work: Residential / Commercial', 'Class of Work: New / Repair / Alteration / Addition / Demolition', 'Value of Work: $'), and nothing on the form or anywhere else in the Building Department's published material exempts photovoltaic installations from that general requirement. F.S. 553.79 requires a permit for construction work statewide subject to narrow statutory exemptions, none of which reach rooftop PV. No county document contains a PV-specific checkbox or line item of any kind (see the controls note at q11) - Madison, unlike some Florida counties surveyed elsewhere in this project, has not built a dedicated solar line into its form. 70% · permit application form
• Is there a separate electrical permit, or is it combined? Separate. The county publishes a distinct 'Electrical Permit Packet' (its own cover page collecting service voltage, amperage and use, e.g. 'Residential-100 amps (min)', '200amps', RV/well service) that is bundled with, but precedes, a copy of the general Building Permit Application - functioning as an electrical-specific front sheet rather than a single combined form. The general Building Permit Application itself lists 'Electrical Subcontractor' as one line among several trade subcontractors (electrical, plumbing, mechanical, roofing), consistent with one building permit carrying multiple trade sub-permits/inspections rather than one single undifferentiated permit. 62% · permit application form
• Is a HOA or architectural approval required first? Not by the authority. Neither Greenville nor Madison County requires HOA or architectural approval for rooftop PV, and F.S. 163.04(2) voids any deed restriction or covenant that prohibits or has the effect of prohibiting solar collectors - such a body may only 'determine the specific location where solar collectors may be installed on the roof within an orientation to the south or within 45 degrees east or west of due south if such determination does not impair the effective operation of the solar collectors.' 65% · state statute
• Is there a historic-district review? No historic-district review reaches Greenville from the county, and no Greenville historic ordinance of any kind could be found. Madison County's Land Development Code does have a historic/archaeological sites provision (LDC Section 6.3-5, 'Historic and/or Archaeological Sites', keyed to the county's own Natural Resource maps and National Register of Historic Places eligibility), but it sits inside the LDC, which by its own Section 1.5 applies only in unincorporated Madison County (see q2) - so this provision does not reach incorporated Greenville on its own terms. 60% · land development code chapter
• Is a wind or windstorm certification required? No county- or town-specific windstorm certificate or wind-speed-line ordinance could be found for Madison County (contrast some other Florida counties surveyed in this project, which have their own locally adopted wind-speed-line ordinance). What applies is the statewide Florida Building Code, 8th Edition (2023), which incorporates the ASCE 7-22 ultimate design wind speed maps. Neither the Building Permit Application nor the Electrical Permit Packet contains a 'Florida Product Approval' field of the kind other Florida counties print on their trade-permit forms. 58% · county department page
• Is a Specific Use Permit or Council approval ever required? No Special Use Permit or Council approval requirement for rooftop PV could be found at either the county or town level. Because Madison County's LDC (the instrument that would define Special Exception/SUP uses) applies only in unincorporated Madison County (q2), any such approval process for a Greenville address would have to be Greenville's own - and Greenville publishes no ordinances, zoning code, or council-approval process of any kind that could be found online. 55% · land development code chapter
• Is there a system-size cap on residential generation? No cap from the county or town. The binding cap is functional rather than a fixed kW number, and comes from the utility: Tri-County Electric Cooperative's Interconnection Agreement states 'The RGS must have a GPR [Gross Power Rating] that does not exceed ninety percent (90%) of the Customer's utility distribution service rating at the Customer's location. If the GPR does exceed that ninety percent (90%) limit, the Customer shall be responsible to pay the cost of upgrades for that distribution service.' The agreement's own recital line leaves the specific kW figure blank ('rated at no more than ___ kilowatts (kW)'), to be filled in per application rather than fixed cooperative-wide. 75% · utility interconnection agreement

Several authorities require the electrical permit to be pulled by a licensed electrician, or require the contractor to be registered with them BEFORE applying. Registration is not same-day. This is second on the list rather than fourth because it is the step most likely to stop the job before the drawings matter.

• Who is allowed to pull the electrical permit? Either. A Florida-licensed electrical contractor (DBPR license number is a required field on both the Building Permit Application and the Electrical Permit Packet) may pull it, or a property owner may act as his/her own electrical contractor under the F.S. 489.503(6) exemption, for which the county publishes its own Electrical Disclosure Statement: 'State law requires electrical contracting to be done by licensed electrical contractors. You have applied for a permit under an exemption to that law. The exemption allows you, as the owner of your property, to act as your own electrical contractor even though you do not have a license... single-family or duplex residence... for your own use and occupancy.' 88% · owner disclosure form
• Must the contractor be registered with this authority before applying? Probably yes in some form, but no registration packet or process is published online. The Building Department's own page states it 'is also responsible for the licensing of contractors registered through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation within Madison County; this is done through the Competency Licensing Board' - naming a county-level Competency Licensing Board distinct from state DBPR licensure. But the Building Department's Forms page (20 items enumerated) contains no contractor-registration form, no competency-card application, and no fee schedule for one, unlike neighbouring Florida counties surveyed elsewhere in this project that publish a full registration packet. 55% · county department page
• Is a homeowner permitted to self-install and self-permit? Yes. Madison County's Electrical Disclosure Statement is built on the F.S. 489.503(6) owner-as-own-electrical-contractor exemption for a single-family or duplex residence for the owner's own use and occupancy, not offered for sale or lease; a sale or lease of more than one such owner-built structure within 1 year is prima facie evidence the work was done for sale or lease, voiding the exemption. The general Building Permit Application also has separate signature blocks for 'Signature of Owner/Agent' and 'Signature of Contractor', consistent with an owner pulling and signing a permit without a contractor. 85% · owner disclosure form

Almost everywhere wants a site plan, a one-line or three-line electrical diagram, equipment cut sheets with listings, and a structural attachment detail. Build it against the published checklist rather than the last jurisdiction you worked in — the checklist is what the reviewer marks against.

• What documents make up a complete submittal? No solar-specific submittal checklist is published. What the general Building Permit Application requires for 'Addition and New Construction Projects': plans and specifications sealed by an architect and/or engineer; Two Sets of Plans (2); Site Plan (2); Wind Load Analysis (2); Florida Energy Form (2); Truss Layout (2); Septic/Sewer Permit; Zoning Compliance; Notice of Commencement; Driveway Permit; Warranty Deed; plus, for commercial projects only, a Lease Agreement and Utility Agreement and four (4) sets of plans instead of two. Whether a rooftop PV retrofit on an EXISTING house is read by this department as 'Addition' (checklist applies) or ordinary 'Repair/Alteration' (checklist may not fully apply) is not stated. 68% · permit application form
• How many copies, and in what format? Format is digital-first: the county's own 'Before submitting information for a permit' guide instructs applicants to complete the entire application at us.cloudpermit.com/gov/dashboard and 'upload your completed forms when you reach the attachment section.' The paper Building Permit Application itself still calls for 'Two Sets of Plans (2)... If indicated provide two (2) copies, one will be returned with building permit noting any required corrections' for in-person or mailed submittals. No page count, sheet size or file-format specification (e.g. PDF, DWG) is published for the digital upload route. 70% · county guidance document
• Is a site plan required, and what must it show? Yes for new construction/additions - 'Site Plan (2)' is one of the checklist items on the Building Permit Application - but what it must show is not specified anywhere in the Building Department's published material. A separate 'Zoning Compliance' line also appears on the same checklist, which is in tension with Madison County's own Land Development Code Section 1.5 stating the LDC applies only in unincorporated areas (see q2) - it is not established whether the county's generic Building Permit Application checklist, including this Zoning Compliance line, is applied literally inside Greenville's limits or is understood to be inapplicable there. 55% · permit application form
• Is a one-line / three-line diagram required? Not required by the county's own building/electrical forms - no line diagram field or requirement appears on either the Building Permit Application or the Electrical Permit Packet. It IS required by the utility: Tri-County Electric Cooperative's own Interconnection Process states at step 3, 'Provide Supporting Documents - Submit a one-line diagram showing the electrical design of the generating installation, including equipment for interconnection with the Cooperative's system. TCEC's Engineering Department may require additional documents.' Proved absence, not a failure to look: the Madison County Building Department's Forms page (20 forms enumerated), Permit Applications page, Building Codes page, and the Building Permit Application and Electrical Permit Packet themselves were pulled and read in full in this run. Search controls on that corpus plus the county's Land Development Code (Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 6, pulled as PDF and OCR'd/extracted with pdftotext) and Tri-County Electric Cooperative's own Interconnection Process and Interconnection Agreement: 'electrical' returns hits in 5 of the documents (positive control passed); 'zzqqx' returns 0 (fabricated control passed); 'solar'/'photovoltaic' return 0 hits anywhere in the county's own building-department corpus (no PV-specific document of any kind is published); 'battery'/'batteries'/'energy storage'/'ESS' also return 0 hits across the same corpus plus the TCEC interconnection documents. 72% · utility interconnection process
• Is a structural PE stamp required, and at what threshold? No local structural PE-stamp threshold is published. What the Building Permit Application does say is that 'For Addition and New Construction Projects all plans and specifications are required to be sealed by an architect and/or engineer showing seal and signature with license number' - a trigger tied to project CLASSIFICATION (Addition/New Construction) rather than to a size, load or kW threshold. Whether a rooftop PV retrofit on an existing house counts as an 'Addition' for this purpose is not stated (see q8). 58% · permit application form
• Is an electrical PE stamp required, and at what threshold? No local electrical PE-stamp requirement is published by Madison County. At state level, F.S. 471.003(2)(h) exempts a ch. 489-licensed electrical contractor from engineering licensure where the project 'Requires an electrical or plumbing or air-conditioning and refrigeration system with a value of $125,000 or less' and 'Requires an aggregate service capacity of 600 amperes (240 volts) or less on a residential electrical system' - which covers essentially every residential rooftop PV job. 68% · state statute

Most authorities now take the whole application through a portal, and several states cap or constrain what a residential solar permit may cost. Check whether plan check is billed separately before you quote the job.

• Which permit portal does this authority use? Cloudpermit. The county's 'Before submitting information for a permit' guide directs applicants to 'us.cloudpermit.com/gov/dashboard or go to: Permit Applications on madisoncountyfl.com and click Online Permit', and the Permit Applications page itself is titled 'e permit application at US.CLOUDPERMIT.COM Online Permit Application' alongside a 'Print a Permit Application' route for paper forms. 85% · permit portal landing page
• Can the whole application be completed online? Yes, by the county's own instructions. The 'Before submitting information for a permit' guide walks the applicant through completing the ENTIRE application inside Cloudpermit: select forms, complete and sign them, then 'Complete the New Application on us.cloudpermit.com/gov/dashboard and upload your completed forms when you reach the attachment section... Complete and submit your application.' This is a materially different process from counties that require an in-person or emailed submittal - Madison's own guidance describes a start-to-finish online flow, apart from any documents (like a notarized Notice of Commencement) that must still be recorded with the County Clerk separately. 78% · county guidance document
• How is the fee calculated? Likely valuation-based, by inference. The general Building Permit Application asks for 'Value of Work: $' as a required field, which is the standard input for a valuation-table fee calculation, but no published fee schedule confirms this or gives the multiplier/table (see q15). 55% · permit application form

Interconnection is a separate process from the permit and usually the longer pole. Where the utility does not depend on the permit being issued, running both at once is the single biggest saving available on a residential job.

• What is the stated plan-review turnaround? No plan-review turnaround is published by the county. The statutory floor applies: F.S. 553.792(1)(a) sets 5 business days after a complete and sufficient application for an electrical or structural permit on an EXISTING single-family residential dwelling where the value of the work is under $15,000, and 30 business days for a residential unit or electrical permit where the structure is under 7,500 square feet. The county must give written notice within 5 business days of anything missing, or the application is automatically deemed complete under 553.792(1)(c). 65% · state statute
• How long is an issued permit valid before it expires? No Madison County document (searched: Building Permit Application, Electrical Permit Packet, Notice of Commencement, Before-Submitting guide) states a local permit-validity period. The statutory floor is F.S. 553.79(1)(c): a building permit issued by a local government for a single-family dwelling expires 1 year after issuance, or on the effective date of the next Florida Building Code edition, whichever is later. 55% · state statute
• Which utility handles interconnection here? Uncertain between two named utilities. Madison County's own Building Permit Application and Electrical Permit Packet both carry the field 'Utility Company: [ ] DUKE [ ] TCEC' with no geographic guidance, confirming both Duke Energy Florida and Tri-County Electric Cooperative (TCEC) operate somewhere in the county. TCEC is headquartered in Madison, FL and was chartered in 1940 'to proceed with a program of rural electrification for Madison, Taylor, and Jefferson counties' - and its own published history names two of its nine founding trustees as being 'from Greenville' (James R. Laney, Sr. and J.E. Hagan), which is first-party (if historical) evidence tying the cooperative to the Greenville area specifically. No Greenville-specific service-territory statement from either utility could be found. 52% · utility own page
• Where does the utility sit in the sequence? Parallel, with a hard AHJ-inspection gate before the utility will energize. TCEC's own published Interconnection Process lists 11 steps: sign the interconnection agreement and submit a one-line diagram (steps 2-3) can happen before or during construction; step 7 is 'Complete Construction' (install disconnect switch, warning/safety labels); step 8 is 'Inspection by County Inspector - The installation of the system must be inspected and approved by the county'; only after that does step 9 (notify TCEC of completion), step 10 (utility verification visit) and step 11 (TCEC signs and approves) follow. The member 'may not interconnect or initiate parallel operation until such conditions are corrected and written notification has been provided to TCEC at least 10 days in advance.' 75% · utility interconnection process

The NEC edition a jurisdiction enforces is often a cycle behind the newest one published, and local amendments sit on top of it. Rapid shutdown, conductor sizing and labelling all change between editions, so the edition in force is the first thing to establish, not the last.

• Which NEC edition is in force? NEC 2020 (NFPA 70, 2020 edition). Madison County's own Building Codes page states this in its own words: 'Florida's current electrical code was adopted statewide and effective on work permitted after January 1, 2021 is the 2020 National Electric Code. It is also known as NFPA 70 2020.' This matches the statewide adoption at FAC 69A-60.005(2)(qq), '(qq) NFPA 70, 2020 edition, National Electrical Code', effective 31 December 2023. 90% · county department page
• Which building code edition is in force? Florida Building Code, 8th Edition (2023). FAC 61G20-1.001(1) currently reads: 'The Florida Building Code, 8th Edition (2023), as updated by the Florida Building Commission on June 20, 2023, April 16, 2024, August 13, 2024, December 10, 2024, December 20, 2024, April 15, 2025, and December 9, 2025, and incorporated herein by reference is hereby adopted as the building code for the State of Florida.' Madison County's own Building Codes page uses older, generic phrasing - 'The current Florida Building codes, effective on work permitted after December 31, 2017, can be accessed for free online' - that is stale as a description of the edition currently in force but does not contradict it, since the page just links out to whatever the current online code is rather than naming an edition. 82% · state administrative rule
• Which fire code edition is in force? Florida Fire Prevention Code - NFPA 1, the Fire Code, Florida 2021 Edition, and NFPA 101, the Life Safety Code, Florida 2021 Edition, both adopted by FAC Chapter 69A-60 (69A-60.003 and .004) effective 31 December 2023. No Madison County or Greenville amendment to the fire code was found - the county's Building Codes page does not mention fire code at all, and no separate Fire Rescue department fire-code page was located with code-adoption content. 70% · state administrative rule
• Are there local amendments to any of the above? No local amendments to the building, electrical or fire codes could be found for Madison County or Greenville. This is a genuine structural difference from many Florida counties: Madison County's Land Development Code (Chapters 1 through 7, as listed on the county's own LDC page: Status/Amendments, Language/Definitions, Administration, Land Use Districts/Development Standards, Subdivision Regulations, Environmental Protection, Concurrency) contains NO building or electrical chapter at all - unlike counties whose code of ordinances folds a locally-amended electrical/building article into the general code. The Building Codes webpage states only that the statewide FBC and 2020 NEC apply, with no mention of any local amendment. 60% · county department page
• What is the installation judged against? The installation is judged against the Florida Building Code, 8th Edition (2023) and NFPA 70 (NEC), 2020 edition, both adopted statewide and both named in plain language on Madison County's own Building Codes page. The Florida Fire Prevention Code (NFPA 1 and NFPA 101, Florida 2021 Editions) applies by operation of state rule. No Madison County or Greenville local amendment to any of these could be found (q32). 80% · county department page

Ridge setbacks and roof access pathways are fire-service requirements and they constrain the array layout. They are the most common cause of a redesign after the fire department comments on a plan set.

Nothing recorded for Town of Greenville on this step yet — 1 question checked and found unpublished. The guidance above is general.

Which rapid-shutdown rule applies follows directly from the NEC edition in force, and the initiation device has to be at a location the fire service can reach and identify. This is inspected, and it is labelled.

• Is rapid shutdown required, and to which NEC edition? Rapid shutdown is required, to NEC 2020 - that is, NEC 690.12 as it stands in the 2020 edition. Madison County's own Building Codes page states the 2020 NEC is in force (q29), and neither the county nor Greenville adds or subtracts anything from it. 78% · county department page

The NEC sets a baseline for permanent markings at the service equipment and the disconnecting means. On top of that, an authority may specify its own wording, and the utility may specify more again. Where any of them writes its own text, a generic off-the-shelf label set will not pass — this is the detail most often fixed on a return visit.

• Which placards does this authority require at the service equipment? No AHJ-specific placard set. Neither Greenville nor Madison County specifies any placard, marking or label for a PV system at the service equipment - the Building Department's pages and forms are silent on the point entirely. The utility does require labelling: TCEC's Interconnection Process step 7 requires the member to 'install a disconnect switch, warning/safety labels, and other protective equipment as may be required by the Cooperative to protect its personnel, facilities and operations' before energizing. Proved absence, not a failure to look: the Madison County Building Department's Forms page (20 forms enumerated), Permit Applications page, Building Codes page, and the Building Permit Application and Electrical Permit Packet themselves were pulled and read in full in this run. Search controls on that corpus plus the county's Land Development Code (Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 6, pulled as PDF and OCR'd/extracted with pdftotext) and Tri-County Electric Cooperative's own Interconnection Process and Interconnection Agreement: 'electrical' returns hits in 5 of the documents (positive control passed); 'zzqqx' returns 0 (fabricated control passed); 'solar'/'photovoltaic' return 0 hits anywhere in the county's own building-department corpus (no PV-specific document of any kind is published); 'battery'/'batteries'/'energy storage'/'ESS' also return 0 hits across the same corpus plus the TCEC interconnection documents. 62% · utility interconnection process
• Does the authority specify placard wording of its own? No. Neither Greenville nor Madison County specifies placard wording of its own anywhere this run could find. Proved absence, not a failure to look: the Madison County Building Department's Forms page (20 forms enumerated), Permit Applications page, Building Codes page, and the Building Permit Application and Electrical Permit Packet themselves were pulled and read in full in this run. Search controls on that corpus plus the county's Land Development Code (Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 6, pulled as PDF and OCR'd/extracted with pdftotext) and Tri-County Electric Cooperative's own Interconnection Process and Interconnection Agreement: 'electrical' returns hits in 5 of the documents (positive control passed); 'zzqqx' returns 0 (fabricated control passed); 'solar'/'photovoltaic' return 0 hits anywhere in the county's own building-department corpus (no PV-specific document of any kind is published); 'battery'/'batteries'/'energy storage'/'ESS' also return 0 hits across the same corpus plus the TCEC interconnection documents. 68% · county department page
• Does it specify letter height, colour or material? No. Neither Greenville nor Madison County specifies letter height, colour or material for any PV placard or label. Proved absence, not a failure to look: the Madison County Building Department's Forms page (20 forms enumerated), Permit Applications page, Building Codes page, and the Building Permit Application and Electrical Permit Packet themselves were pulled and read in full in this run. Search controls on that corpus plus the county's Land Development Code (Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 6, pulled as PDF and OCR'd/extracted with pdftotext) and Tri-County Electric Cooperative's own Interconnection Process and Interconnection Agreement: 'electrical' returns hits in 5 of the documents (positive control passed); 'zzqqx' returns 0 (fabricated control passed); 'solar'/'photovoltaic' return 0 hits anywhere in the county's own building-department corpus (no PV-specific document of any kind is published); 'battery'/'batteries'/'energy storage'/'ESS' also return 0 hits across the same corpus plus the TCEC interconnection documents. 60% · county department page
• Is a site plan / facility map placard required, and what must it show? Not addressed by the AHJ. Madison County publishes no site-plan/facility-map placard requirement of its own for PV. By default, NEC 705.10 (Identification of Power Sources) requires a permanent plaque or directory at each service disconnecting means identifying all on-site sources of power, which applies here because the 2020 NEC is confirmed in force (q29) - but the substantive text of 705.10 itself could not be read in this run (same 403/JavaScript-viewer limitation affecting every NEC section cited in this survey), so this is the edition asserted, not the section quoted. 50% · county department page
• Does the UTILITY specify placards beyond the AHJ's? Yes. Tri-County Electric Cooperative's own Interconnection Agreement requires, beyond anything the AHJ publishes: a UL 1741-listed, NRTL-certified, anti-islanding inverter ('The inverter shall be considered certified for interconnected operation if it has been submitted by a manufacturer to a nationally-recognized testing laboratory (NRTL) to comply with UL 1741'); a manual AC disconnect switch mounted separately from the meter socket, readily accessible to the Cooperative and capable of being locked in the open position by the Cooperative; Personal Injury and Property Damage Liability Insurance (at least $1,000,000 for systems above 10 kW); and a one-line diagram submitted before installation (q11). 80% · utility interconnection agreement
• Where must the labels be placed? TCEC's Interconnection Agreement specifies only the disconnect switch's location, not a label's: 'mounted separately from the meter socket' and 'readily accessible at all times to the Cooperative.' No document, county or utility, specifies WHERE a placard or warning label itself must be placed (e.g. at the meter, at the main panel, at the disconnect) beyond that general accessibility requirement for the disconnect switch. 60% · utility interconnection agreement

Where the AC disconnect must sit relative to the meter is usually the utility's rule, not the building department's. Battery storage frequently carries its own permit, its own inspection and its own fire conditions.

• Where must the AC disconnect be, relative to the meter? Per the utility (TCEC): the AC disconnect must be mounted SEPARATELY from the meter socket, and must be readily accessible at all times to the Cooperative and capable of being locked in the open position by the Cooperative. No exact distance or side-of-meter rule is given - only that it is a distinct, separately-mounted switch. No AHJ (county or town) document adds anything further. 75% · utility interconnection agreement
• Must equipment be on a specific approved list? Yes, at least for the inverter. TCEC's Interconnection Agreement requires 'interconnection system equipment that ceases to interconnect with the utility upon a loss of utility power' to be 'certified for interconnected operation' by having been 'submitted by a manufacturer to a nationally-recognized testing laboratory (NRTL) to comply with UL 1741', with the NRTL itself required to be OSHA-approved. No county-level approved-equipment list could be found - this requirement is the utility's, not the AHJ's. 75% · utility interconnection agreement
• Are batteries permitted, and under what conditions? Presumably yes, under the general codes rather than any Madison-specific rule. Batteries/ESS are addressed generally by NEC 2020 (Article 706) and by the Florida Fire Prevention Code (NFPA 1, Florida 2021 Edition), both of which apply in Madison County via statewide adoption (q29, q31). Neither Madison County nor Greenville publishes any battery- or ESS-specific condition, permit note, or restriction of its own - the word 'battery', 'batteries', 'energy storage' and 'ESS' return zero hits across every Madison County Building Department document and every TCEC interconnection document read in this run. 55% · county department page
• Is a ground mount treated as a structure? Unresolved, and genuinely so. Madison County's Land Development Code, which is where a definition of 'structure' triggering site-plan/zoning review would live, applies only in unincorporated Madison County (q2) and therefore does not reach a ground mount inside Greenville's limits on its own terms. The Building Department's general practice would almost certainly treat a ground-mounted array as requiring a building permit as a structure/accessory structure under the Florida Building Code (the Forms page lists an 'Accessory Structure Permit Application' as a distinct package), but whether Greenville's own (unpublished, unconfirmed) zoning - if any exists - treats it as a structure for setback/zoning purposes is not established. 55% · county department page
• Is there a local rule on service upgrades or busbar sizing? No local rule on service upgrades or busbar sizing could be found. Madison County has no building/electrical chapter in its Land Development Code at all (see q32), and neither the Building Permit Application nor the Electrical Permit Packet states a local rule on service conductors, busbar or 120% sizing - what governs is NEC 2020 Article 705 (including 705.12) as adopted statewide, with no Madison-specific supplement found. 55% · permit application form
• Is a specific mounting system or attachment spacing required? Not published. No mounting system, attachment spacing, rail, flashing or standoff requirement appears in the Building Permit Application, the Electrical Permit Packet, the Building Codes page, or the Forms page (20 items enumerated - none is a roofing/mounting spec). No 'Florida Product Approval' field appears on any Madison County form (contrast q26). Proved absence, not a failure to look: the Madison County Building Department's Forms page (20 forms enumerated), Permit Applications page, Building Codes page, and the Building Permit Application and Electrical Permit Packet themselves were pulled and read in full in this run. Search controls on that corpus plus the county's Land Development Code (Chapters 1, 3, 4 and 6, pulled as PDF and OCR'd/extracted with pdftotext) and Tri-County Electric Cooperative's own Interconnection Process and Interconnection Agreement: 'electrical' returns hits in 5 of the documents (positive control passed); 'zzqqx' returns 0 (fabricated control passed); 'solar'/'photovoltaic' return 0 hits anywhere in the county's own building-department corpus (no PV-specific document of any kind is published); 'battery'/'batteries'/'energy storage'/'ESS' also return 0 hits across the same corpus plus the TCEC interconnection documents. 58% · county department page

Booking is a portal, a phone call or an email depending on the authority, and the notice required is rarely zero. Book before the work is finished rather than after — the lead time, not the work, is usually what sets the date.

• How is an inspection booked? Phone. The Building Department's own Inspections page states: 'Request an Inspection - To request an inspection, call (850) 973-6785 and provide the following information: Permit Number, Inspection Type Requested, Gate Codes (If Applicable), Contact Name and Phone Number.' Whether the Cloudpermit portal also supports scheduling inspections online was not confirmed - the portal is login-gated and this page describes only the phone route. 85% · county department page
• How much notice is required? Effectively same-business-day if called in early, otherwise next business day. The Inspections page states: 'We need to receive the inspection request before 8:00 AM on the day the inspection is to be done, so please call during the working day before you want the inspection. Requests after 8:00 AM will be placed on the next working day's schedule.' 85% · county department page
• Are same-day or AM/PM windows offered? Same-day booking is implied by the 8:00 AM cutoff rule (q50) - a request made before 8 AM is placed on that day's schedule, not a fixed AM/PM window. No AM/PM window split, or any narrower time-of-day commitment, is published. 68% · county department page

Some authorities inspect their own solar work; some delegate it, and a few do not inspect the PV equipment itself at all. Who is coming determines what they will look at.

• Does this AHJ perform its own final solar inspection? Yes. The Madison County Building Department performs its own final electrical/building inspections; this is confirmed independently by the utility TCEC's own Interconnection Process, whose step 8 is 'Inspection by County Inspector - The installation of the system must be inspected and approved by the county' before the utility will proceed to verification and interconnection approval (steps 9-11). 85% · utility interconnection process
• If delegated, to whom? Madison County Building Department, 229 SW Pinckney Street, Suite 219, Madison, FL 32340, 850-973-6785. Building Official Dennis Pitts (850-464-7106); Pat O'Brian is listed as Single Family Dwelling Inspector (850-464-7009). 82% · county department page

A rough-in or mid-roof inspection, where one is required, has to happen before the work it covers is closed up. Missing a stage means opening something back up, and it is the most expensive kind of correction.

Nothing recorded for Town of Greenville on this step yet — 2 questions checked and found unpublished. The guidance above is general.

The approved plan set, the permit, and the equipment listings should be on site and reachable. Inspectors routinely verify that installed equipment matches what was approved, and that the labels are the ones the plan set promised.

• Is there a published inspection checklist? No. No published inspection checklist of any kind (PV or general) could be found. The Building Department's Forms page enumerates 20 documents (911 Address Acknowledgement, Accessory Structure Permit Application, Agreement to submit NFIP elevation certificate, Building Permit Application, Cell Tower Permit Package, Declaration of Construction Debris Removal, Driveway Permit Application, Electrical Disclosure, Electrical Permit Package, Evacuation Plan Checklist, Mobile Home Pre-Inspection Application, New Construction Application, New Mobile Home Package, Non-conversion agreement, Notice of Commencement, Owner Builder Affidavit, Plumbing or Mechanical Permit Application, Roofing Package, Shed Usage Affidavit, Swimming Pool Permit Package, Termination of Virtual Roofing Inspections Acknowledgment, Used Mobile Home Package) and none of them is an inspection checklist. 75% · county department page
• What must be on site at inspection? At minimum, a recorded and posted Notice of Commencement: the Building Permit Application itself warns 'A NOTICE OF COMMENCMENT MUST BE RECORDED AND POSTED ON THE JOB SITE BEFORE THE FIRST INSPECTION.' Beyond that, no published document lists what else (permit card, approved plans, product approval sheet) must physically be on site at inspection time. 60% · permit application form
• Does the inspector verify labels and listings? Not documented either way for PV specifically. No published checklist states that the inspector verifies labels and listings on a solar job (see q57's absence). The generic expectation that an inspector confirms code-compliant, listed equipment is implicit in Florida Building Code/NEC enforcement generally, but Madison County publishes nothing that says so in words for any trade, let alone solar. 50% · county department page

Passing gives you a final or an equivalent sign-off. That is not the same as permission to operate: PTO comes from the utility, and who tells the utility the inspection passed varies. A system left switched off for weeks is usually waiting on this handover.

• Who notifies the utility for PTO? Installer or member notifies the utility, not the AHJ. TCEC's own Interconnection Process places the notification duty on the member: step 9, 'Notify TCEC of Completion - Notify the Cooperative in advance of energizing your small power generating installation... Upon completion of installation, please notify TCEC by sending an email to engineering@tcec.com.' The county inspection (step 8) is a precondition to that notification, not itself a notice to the utility. 75% · utility interconnection process