Applied for online, delivered on paper
Electrical permits cover solar systems in Scranton, and they are applied for online. The prints, though, still have to be submitted in person at City Hall: 2 copies of the plans for a residential job, and 3 copies stamped by an architect or engineer for commercial work.
It is a small procedural fact with a practical consequence, because it means someone has to physically go to City Hall during opening hours with the right number of copies. Ask your contractor who does that and whether it is included in what they are charging. A company that installs in Scranton regularly will not blink at the question.
The stamped-drawings requirement applies to commercial jobs rather than residential ones, which is worth knowing if you are being quoted for an engineer's stamp on a house. Ask what the drawings need to show and who is preparing them.
Licensed by the city, and insured
Scranton requires contractors installing solar to be licensed by the city and insured. That is a short sentence with a long tail: it is the difference between a company that can legally complete your project and one that will subcontract the permit at the last minute or stall.
Ask for evidence rather than assurance. A current city licence number and a certificate of insurance are documents, and a company that holds them can send them the same day. Where a firm sells in the region but installs through subcontractors, ask which entity is actually licensed here and who carries the insurance on your job.
It is also a useful filter when comparing quotes. A price from an unlicensed operator is not comparable to one from a licensed one, because the first is not a project that can proceed as offered.
What PPL credits you for exported power
Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission sets net metering at the full retail rate, and PPL Electric Utilities is the distribution utility here. Excess generation is credited kWh for kWh against your usage in each billing period, so an exported kilowatt-hour buys back a kilowatt-hour later at the same price.
Once a year the utility reconciles any credit still banked at the regulated Price to Compare rate, which is narrower than full retail. So the value of a system depends slightly on whether the summer surplus gets consumed during the year or carries through to reconciliation, which is an argument for matching the array to your consumption rather than building to the limit of the roof.
Ask your installer to confirm the current net metering tariff for PPL specifically before the design is fixed. Terms are set per utility rather than uniformly, and the figure that matters to you is the one on your own account.
Roofs, duplexes and who decides
Single-detached houses are 48.7 percent of Scranton's 35,512 housing units, so about half of residents control their own roof and can carry a project through without anyone else's approval.
Two-unit buildings are 15.3 percent, a large share, and three and four unit buildings a further 9.8 percent. In both, roof rights can involve more than one owner, and there is a second question underneath: an array feeds one electrical service, so it reduces the bill on the meter it connects to rather than splitting across the units. Where the units are separately owned, settle that in writing before a design is commissioned.
Single-attached units are 10.6 percent, where the roof plane and property line need establishing on site rather than from an aerial image, and buildings of 20 or more units are 8.2 percent, where the roof belongs to the owner or the association. On any of these, ask for production modelled per roof plane with the shading assumptions stated, so you can see which panels are actually earning their place.
The money, including one source that is out of date
Plan on roughly 1,190 kWh a year for every kW installed. It is a derived estimate from satellite irradiance with a standard performance ratio applied rather than a measurement, so the site survey is what produces a contractual number.
Pennsylvania's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act gives the owner of a certified system one Alternative Energy Credit for every 1,000 kWh generated, saleable to utilities and suppliers needing compliance. Register through the PA AEPS portal and the PJM Generation Attribute Tracking System, directly or via an aggregator or broker. Prices fluctuate on an open market, so it is a variable extra rather than a dependable income stream, and a quote that presents a fixed annual AEC figure is presenting a market price as a tariff.
One caution specific to reading around this subject: the 30 percent federal residential tax credit under Section 25D applied through December 31, 2025 and is not available for a purchased home system placed in service after that date. Some locally published solar guidance still carries the old text, so a document you are handed may describe a credit that no longer exists. It is out of date rather than dishonest, but the payback figure built on it is wrong either way. Lease and power purchase agreement providers may claim the separate business credit under Section 48E and reflect part of it in the rate they offer.