Solar & Battery Permits + Installer Rankings (ATX/SEA/SF)

This Actor returns only solar PV and battery storage permits, plus optional installer rankings, from three city open-data portals. It is not a general building-permit dump.

City	Dataset	Licence
Austin, TX	Issued Construction Permits (3syk-w9eu), City of Austin Development Services	Public domain under City of Austin Open Data Terms of Use
Seattle, WA	Electrical Permits (c4tj-daue), Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (SDCI)	Public Domain (dataset metadata); Seattle Open Data Terms of Use apply
San Francisco, CA	Electrical Permits, legacy system (ftty-kx6y), SF Department of Building Inspection (DBI)	ODC Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL) 1.0

Coverage and freshness (checked 2026-11-05)

City	Matching permits issued 2025-01-01 to early Nov 2026	Latest issue date seen	How often the city updates	Contractor names
Austin, TX	2,580 (solar 1,344 / battery 846 / solar+battery 390)	2026-11-03	Rows refreshed daily	Yes
Seattle, WA	1,360 (solar 935 / battery 176 / solar+battery 249)	2026-11-02	Rows refreshed daily	Yes
San Francisco, CA	1,818 (solar+battery 1,273 / solar 454 / battery 91)	2026-11-03	Portal metadata says weekly; rows were refreshed 2026-11-04	No (not published in this dataset)

The full datasets go back much further (Austin from the 1920s, San Francisco from 2002), so you can set dateFrom to any year.

San Francisco's dataset is the city's legacy electrical permit system. It is still being updated as of November 2026. If the city retires it, San Francisco rows will stop.

System size in kW was found in the description for 42% of Austin, 68% of Seattle and 68% of San Francisco permits in this window. Austin is lower because most of its battery-only permits do not state a size.

What you get

One row per matching permit: city, permit ID, category (solar / battery / solar+battery), dates, status, ZIP code, system size in kW and battery kWh when the permit description states them, valuation, and contractor company (when published). The free-text description itself is not returned.

Installer ranking mode returns permit count per contractor per city with first and last issue date. Austin and Seattle support this. San Francisco's legacy electrical dataset has no contractor column, so that city is skipped in ranking mode with a log note.

Who uses this

• Battery and solar installers checking who is pulling permits in their ZIP codes, and how fast a new competitor is growing.
• Equipment distributors building a list of active installers in Austin and Seattle to call on.
• Analysts and journalists tracking permit volume month by month. Example: in Austin, permits matching battery keywords went from 24 in July 2026 to 265 in October 2026, almost all filed by one company.
• Researchers who need permit-level records they can look up by permit ID on the city portal.

Privacy

No homeowner names, street addresses, coordinates, or contact details. Location is limited to ZIP code.

• No free-text description column. The city's work description is read only to work out the category, system kW and battery kWh, then dropped.
• No latitude or longitude, and no street address, for any city.
• No link to the city's permit page. Each row has the permit ID, which you can look up on the city portal.
• No owner, applicant or contact-person columns. They are never requested from the city APIs.
• Contractor names are kept only if they contain a company word (LLC, Inc, Co, Partners, Companies, Solar, Energy, Electric, Permitting and similar) or the exact name appears on 5 or more permits in the data matching your filters. Otherwise the contractor is null.

Honest limits on kW and dollars

System size is parsed from the cities' free-text descriptions (the text itself is not returned). For permits issued from 2025-01-01 to early November 2026, kW was found on 68% of San Francisco, 68% of Seattle and 42% of Austin rows. Among the most recent Austin permits it is much lower, because most are battery-only permits that do not state a size. Dollar valuations are often $1 placeholders in the portals; those are returned as null, so do not use this field for $/W math.

Keyword matching is on free text, so a few permits can be mislabelled. Seattle descriptions that say 10kw for a battery can be parsed as systemSizeKw.

Input

cities, permitType (solar / battery / both), outputMode (permits / installerSummary), dateFrom, dateTo (issue date), zipCodes, contractorContains, maxItems.

Ready-to-use input examples

Battery storage permits in Austin since August 2026:

{ "cities": ["AUSTIN"], "permitType": "battery", "outputMode": "permits", "dateFrom": "2026-08-01", "maxItems": 500 }

Top installers by permit count in Austin and Seattle since 2025:

{ "cities": ["AUSTIN", "SEATTLE"], "permitType": "both", "outputMode": "installerSummary", "dateFrom": "2025-01-01", "maxItems": 30 }

Solar permits in a few San Francisco ZIP codes:

{ "cities": ["SAN_FRANCISCO"], "permitType": "solar", "outputMode": "permits", "dateFrom": "2026-01-01", "zipCodes": ["94110", "94112", "94116"], "maxItems": 200 }

One installer's permits in Seattle:

{ "cities": ["SEATTLE"], "outputMode": "permits", "dateFrom": "2025-01-01", "contractorContains": "puget sound solar", "maxItems": 200 }

Output

Permit record (permits mode)

{
  "city": "San Francisco",
  "state": "CA",
  "permitId": "E202610263592",
  "permitType": "Electrical",
  "category": "solar+battery",
  "status": "issued",
  "appliedDate": "2026-10-26",
  "issueDate": "2026-10-26",
  "zipCode": "94122",
  "systemSizeKw": 8.36,
  "batteryKwh": 13.5,
  "valuationUsd": null,
  "contractor": null,
  "source": {
    "publisher": "San Francisco Department of Building Inspection",
    "dataset": "Electrical Permits (legacy system)",
    "datasetId": "ftty-kx6y",
    "url": "https://data.sf.gov/d/ftty-kx6y",
    "license": "ODC Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL) 1.0"
  },
  "retrievedAt": "2026-11-05T03:05:08.916Z"
}

Rows also carry sector, workClass, completedDate and contractorTrade (null where a city does not publish them).

Installer ranking row (installerSummary mode)

{
  "city": "Austin",
  "state": "TX",
  "contractor": "Base Power",
  "permits": 613,
  "firstIssueDate": "2026-03-05",
  "lastIssueDate": "2026-11-03",
  "filters": { "permitType": "both", "dateFrom": "2025-01-01", "dateTo": null, "zipCodes": [] },
  "source": {
    "publisher": "City of Austin, Development Services",
    "dataset": "Issued Construction Permits",
    "url": "https://data.austintexas.gov/d/3syk-w9eu",
    "license": "Public domain (City of Austin Open Data Terms of Use)"
  },
  "retrievedAt": "2026-11-05T03:05:35.910Z"
}

Sample output: top installers by permit count, issued 2025-01-01 to 2026-11-03

City	Contractor	Permits
Austin	Base Power (battery permits only)	613
Austin	Power Home Remodeling	302
Austin	Horus Partners	222
Seattle	sunergy systems	168
Seattle	Puget Sound Solar	144
Seattle	A&R SOLAR CORP	141

Pricing and cost estimate

Pay per event. No subscription and no Apify platform usage charges.

Event	Price
Run start	$0.005
Permit record	$0.002 ($2.00 per 1,000)
Installer ranking row	$0.005

What you run	Approximate cost
100 permit records	$0.21
1,000 permit records	$2.01
Every matching Austin permit since 2025-01-01 (about 2,600)	$5.17
All three cities since 2025-01-01 (about 5,800)	$11.52
Top 30 installer ranking	$0.16

The run start event is charged once per GB of memory, minimum once. At the default 512 MB that is a single $0.005 charge. maxItems caps the number of rows, so it also caps what you pay. You can also set a maximum charge per run in Apify Console.

FAQ

Can I use this data commercially? The three source datasets are public domain (Austin, Seattle) or ODC PDDL 1.0 (San Francisco). Austin's terms ask for attribution; see the Attribution section for the wording. Seattle's terms say a list of individuals taken from city data may not be used for a commercial purpose, which is why personal names are removed. This is not legal advice.

How fresh is it? Each run queries the city portals live. In November 2026, Austin and Seattle rows were refreshed daily and San Francisco's most recent refresh was the day before. The newest permits are usually one or two days old.

Why is system size empty on many rows? Size is parsed from the free-text description and many permits do not state it. For permits issued from 2025-01-01 to early November 2026, kW was found on 42% of Austin, 68% of Seattle and 68% of San Francisco rows.

Why can't I get $/W? The cities' valuation fields are often $1 or other placeholders. The Actor returns those as null. For installed cost, use the NY/CT/OR installations Actor linked below, which reads incentive-program records with real project costs.

Why is San Francisco missing from installer rankings? San Francisco's legacy electrical permit dataset has no contractor column. Permit rows are still returned.

Is every row really solar or storage? No. Matching is on keywords in free text, so a few rows are other work: intercoms with battery backup, telecom battery cabinets, UPS replacements, an address on Seattle's Battery Street. Filter on category and permitType before you count.

Is a permit the same as an installation? No. Permits can be withdrawn or never inspected, and one job can need more than one permit. Use the status field and treat counts as permit activity, not finished systems.

How do I see the full permit record? Look up the permit ID on the city portal. The Actor does not return links to permit pages.

Related Actor

Need installed cost and system size from state incentive programs instead of city permits? Solar Installer Rankings & PV Install Data (NY, CT, OR) returns project records with kW, $/W and installer market share for New York, Connecticut and Oregon. It covers different places than this Actor, so there is no overlap.

Attribution

Data is modified from its original sources. The cities make no claims about accuracy or completeness.

• Austin: City of Austin, Development Services Department, Issued Construction Permits, data.austintexas.gov.
• Seattle: Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections, Electrical Permits, data.seattle.gov.
• San Francisco: San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, Electrical Permits (legacy system), data.sf.gov.