Your solar was installed but never switched on

Panels on the roof do not mean a working system. Until NV Energy issues Permission to Operate, your system may not be switched on and earns no credit on your bill. If yours was installed and never turned on, the approval chain stopped somewhere, and every step in it leaves a record you can check today. Finishing it does not need the original installer.

What Permission to Operate is

NV Energy's Net Metering and Energy Storage Interconnection Handbook, in the revision dated 10/16/2025, defines Permission to Operate as "the formal authorization granted by NV Energy to interconnect the net metering system and begin operating the generator in parallel with the electrical grid."

Two lines in the same handbook explain why it matters so much:

• Systems "may not be energized prior to successful final verification by NV Energy."
• The customer "will not receive kWh credit for energy put back into the grid until the NV Energy meter(s) is set."

So a finished looking array without that approval is, for billing purposes, not there.

The chain, and where it usually stops

The handbook sets out the steps in order. Knowing them tells you what question to ask.

The places it breaks are predictable.

The application was sent back and nobody answered. The handbook says if corrections are not submitted by the 60 calendar day deadline, the application is cancelled due to inactivity.

The permit was never finalled. NV Energy cannot finish without the final inspection card from the city or county. The City of Las Vegas residential solar permit guidance lists a single inspection for photovoltaic, the #227 inspection, scheduled online.

The paperwork was never finished. The handbook gives a project one year in the Awaiting Documentation status to submit all final documentation.

The utility inspection failed. If NV Energy's technician finds an issue, the project moves to a corrections status and is re-inspected once it is fixed.

The system was sized too large. Application review confirms the system is not designed to produce more than 100 percent of the home's annual energy needs, under NRS 704.771, using the largest 12 consecutive months of usage within the past 24. KTNV reported on September 10 2025 on a Las Vegas homeowner whose rooftop system was installed but not generating six months after his contract began, with his loan payments already running, after the application stalled on exactly this sizing question.

How to find out where yours stopped

You can do most of this in an evening.

1. Search your email for a Permission to Operate notice. It goes to all relevant parties, which should include you. If you have one, the problem is not approval; see how to find out if your system still works.
2. Read your NV Energy bill. The handbook says your account is placed on the applicable net metering rate after Permission to Operate. How to read your NV Energy bill once you have solar shows where the rate and the export lines sit.
3. Look up the permit. Search your address on the permit portal for your city, or on Clark County's Citizen Access Portal if you are in unincorporated county. You want the solar permit and whether its final inspection passed. Solar permits in Las Vegas covers which desk your address falls under.
4. Get the NV Energy application number. Ask the installer for it and its status in writing. If the installer does not answer, NV Energy's clean energy team is listed in the handbook at cleanenergy@nvenergy.com and 866-786-3823. Have the account holder make the call, because the handbook requires the host customer name to match the NV Energy account.

Why it matters beyond the bill

Two things keep running while the system sits idle.

Your payments. A loan or lease is a separate contract with a finance company. In the case KTNV reported, the loan payments had started while the system sat unused. Read the payment terms in your agreement, and if payments started before the system worked, raise it with the finance company in writing.

Some warranty clocks. For at least one maker, the clock is tied to this approval. The Enphase Energy System Limited Warranty for the US and Canada, updated September 27 2023, defines a product as "activated" when the solar system has received permission to operate from the authorities having jurisdiction. Check what your own equipment warranties say about their start date.

Who can finish it

Anyone properly licensed, not only the company that started it.

NV Energy's handbook requires interconnections to be performed by a Nevada licensed C-2 or C-2g electrical contractor, and says the permit inspection will not be conducted if the contractor's licence is expired, suspended or revoked. That last point matters if your installer has since lost its licence: a new licensed contractor may need to take over the permit.

Before you hire anyone, check the licence and its status on the Nevada State Contractors Board search page. If the company that installed your system has closed, your solar company went out of business covers the rest: what survives, what does not, and the recovery fund.

What a licensed contractor can do here is concrete: find the application and its status, correct and resubmit it, close the permit, fix any inspection item, and see it through to the meter set. We take on systems other companies started, and we will tell you in writing what is left to do before we quote it.

We recheck this page quarterly. Last checked 2026-09-28. If a number here has moved, tell us and we will fix it the same week.