Solar PV Installation Paperwork End to End: One Job File

Solar PV installation paperwork end to end is six documents that should be one: the site survey (roof structure, snow and wind load, fixing method, existing board and main fuse), the grid notification before work (in Sweden the föranmälan to the DSO, in the UK a G99 application or a G98 notification), the string layout and shading notes, the self-inspection of the DC side and the mountings (Swedish egenkontroll, elsewhere your commissioning test record to IEC 62446-1), the completion notification (färdiganmälan) that releases the meter change, and the customer handover pack. Keep them as one job file, keyed to one job number, and the grid owner, the inspector, the insurer and the accountant all get what they need on the first ask. Keep them scattered across a surveyor's notebook, a portal login, a phone camera roll and an email thread, and you spend a fortnight chasing your own job before you can invoice.

Solar PV installation paperwork end to end: why it matters in 2026

Volume changed the game. Grid owners process notifications in bulk now, and incomplete ones go to the bottom of a queue rather than to a human who phones you. Same with insurers after a roof leak, and with a tax authority checking a green-technology claim. Nobody is being harsh; they are triaging.

A PV job is not paid when the panels are up. It is paid when the completion notification is accepted, the meter is exchanged or reprogrammed, and the customer signs off. Every one of those gates is a document gate. Firms with a standard job pack clear them in one pass; firms without one lose weeks per job to rework, and cash sits in the roof.

Stage 1: The site survey that actually prevents the callback

Most PV disputes trace back to a survey that recorded the sales case but not the building. Record these, with photos, before you quote:

• Roof structure. Rafter or truss, dimension, centres, span, and how you established it. In Sweden, added load is checked against EKS (Boverket's application of the Eurocodes), with snow load from SS-EN 1991-1-3 and its national annex; the UK and NZ run the same logic through BS EN 1991-1-3 and AS/NZS 1170. The point is not the number, it is that the number is written down with its source.
• Covering and its condition. Concrete tile, clay, sheet metal, felt, membrane. Age. Any tile already cracked, photographed before you touch it — the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.
• Fixing method and penetrations. Hook type, rail, ballast, sealing detail, and the manufacturer's system it belongs to. Mixing brands voids the mounting warranty and the wind-load calculation with it.
• Wind exposure. Terrain category, building height, edge and corner zones. Corners take the load; that is where fixings get doubled.
• Consumer unit and supply. Main fuse rating, phases, earthing arrangement (TN-C-S, TN-S, TT), spare ways, existing RCD types, meter position, and the distance from the meter to the intended inverter.
• Planning and heritage. In Sweden, panels that follow the shape of the roof have generally been exempt from bygglov since 2018 under the Planning and Building Act — but not on protected buildings, in defence-interest areas, or where the local detaljplan says otherwise. Check and record the answer; do not assume it.
• Access and safety. Scaffold or MEWP, edge protection, roof pitch, fragile areas. Swedish rules require fall protection where the fall risk is two metres or more; UK sites work to the Work at Height Regulations, which set no threshold at all. The plan belongs in the file, not in your head.

Stage 2: The grid notification, before a single hook goes on

In Sweden, the registered electrical installation company submits a föranmälan to the local DSO before the work, usually through a shared portal, and gets back an installationsmedgivande — permission to proceed on the terms stated. For a micro-producer (a plant feeding in at most 43.5 kW behind a main fuse of no more than 63 A, as defined in the Electricity Act), the feed-in metering is provided without charge. Above that you are into connection fees and possibly production metering — a conversation to have before you sell the system, not after.

In the UK, it splits at 3.68 kW per phase: at or below, you connect and notify the DNO under G98 within 28 days; above, you apply under G99 and wait for the offer first. In New Zealand, the distributor's distributed-generation application works the same way. The pattern is universal: below a threshold, tell them after; above it, ask them first.

The notification itself needs much the same set everywhere: site and metering point identifier, installer registration, inverter make and model with its grid-code compliance certificate, DC array size, AC output per phase, protection settings. Cache those on the product record once and the form takes minutes.

Stage 3: String layout and shading, written where the tester can read it

The string design tends to live only in the designer's head. Record, per string: module type and count, orientation and tilt, the cable route, and the calculated open-circuit voltage at the lowest expected cell temperature against the inverter's maximum DC input. In Sweden a design temperature of around -20 °C in the south and -30 °C or colder in the north is where systems get bricked by installers who used the datasheet's 25 °C figure. Also record the fuse or the deliberate absence of one, and why.

Shading notes should be evidence, not opinion: a horizon photo or shade-analysis screenshot per array plane, with the object named (chimney, neighbour's birch, flue, aerial). When a customer queries a low yield in November, that photo is the answer — instant if it is on the job card, half a day if it is not.

Stage 4: DC-side and mounting self-inspection

Swedish law requires every registered electrical installation company to run a documented self-inspection programme, an egenkontrollprogram, under the Electrical Safety Act and Elsäkerhetsverket's regulations. It is not a form for the customer; it is evidence that your company controls its own work. Outside Sweden the equivalent is your commissioning record, and the reference most national rules point to is IEC 62446-1. Section 712 of the wiring rules (SS 436 40 00 in Sweden, BS 7671 in the UK, AS/NZS 5033 in NZ and AU) covers the installation itself.

The minimum honest DC record per string:

The mounting inspection is the half everyone skips. Torque checked and recorded against the manufacturer's figure. Hook count against the wind-load calculation, with corner and edge zones doubled where the calculation says so. Every penetration photographed sealed. Tiles cut cleanly, not smashed, and any tile replaced listed by name. Gutters clear, offcuts and swarf removed; steel swarf on a coated roof rusts, and the customer photographs it a year later.

Stage 5: Completion notification and the meter

The färdiganmälan (or the G98 notification, or the distributor's completion form) triggers the meter change that lets the system export. Send it the day you commission, not the day you invoice. It typically needs the as-built AC output, final inverter serial numbers, the protection settings actually applied, and confirmation that the install meets the earlier permission. Any deviation from the föranmälan must be stated, not quietly absorbed; unstated deviations are what get a file rejected.

Then there is the money. In Sweden, a grid-connected PV system for a private customer usually falls under the grön teknik (green technology) deduction rather than ROT. It works like ROT from the customer's side: they see a reduced price on the invoice and you claim the balance back from Skatteverket. Solar cells, battery storage and EV charge points each sit at their own rate and share an annual per-person ceiling, and the rates and the ceiling do change — check the current figures at Skatteverket before you quote, every year. Do not quote from last year's spreadsheet.

Stage 6: The handover pack

The pack is what the customer keeps, and what their insurer, their buyer's surveyor and their next electrician will read. One PDF, not fourteen attachments:

• As-built single-line diagram and the string layout, with array planes and orientations
• Module, inverter, optimiser and mounting-system datasheets and declarations of conformity
• The commissioning and self-inspection record with measured values, not ticks
• The grid permission and the accepted completion notification
• Warranty terms with actual start dates, split by product and workmanship, and who to call for each
• Inverter monitoring credentials, and a note that the account is the customer's, not yours
• Shutdown procedure in plain language, on one page, and where the DC isolator is
• Maintenance schedule: what to check, how often, and what never to do (nobody should be on that roof with a pressure washer)
• Photos: pre-existing damage, penetrations sealed, labels fitted, the finished array

Built by hand per job, that pack is half a day. If the job card already carries the survey, the photos, the self-inspection and the notification references, it is a button. That is the argument for running PV out of one system: in OdinTask the survey form, the digital egenkontroll with its templates and attest step, the job photos and the green-technology claim all hang off the same job, so the pack is generated from work you already did rather than reconstructed at the end.

The one-page checklist

1. Survey recorded with structure, load source, covering condition, board details, access plan, photos.
2. Planning and heritage question asked and answered in writing.
3. Grid notification submitted and permission received before the first fixing.
4. String design with cold-temperature Voc check and named shading objects.
5. DC and mounting self-inspection with measured values and torque figures.
6. Completion notification sent on commissioning day, deviations declared.
7. Handover pack issued, credentials transferred, customer signature captured.
8. Invoice with the correct deduction, claimed the same week.

Eight lines, one job number. That is the difference between a PV business that scales and one that drowns in its own paperwork.