Utility reviewers do not reject a National Grid NY vs ConEd interconnection package because the SIR title page is wrong. They reject it because the single-line still shows a network protector on a radial feeder, or a weatherhead that does not exist, or a disconnect the field cannot lock. The state rulebook is shared. The drawing is not.
Athol Energy prepares New York solar permit design and interconnection filings for installers who run crews in both territories in the same week. The intake question is not “New York or not.” It is which utility owns the meter, what the existing service actually is, and whether the AHJ set can stay clean while the utility diagram picks up extra notes.
National Grid NY vs ConEd interconnection is one SIR, two SLDs
The New York State Standardized Interconnection Requirements, effective February 9, 2026, cover new DG and energy storage 5 MW or less on the customer side of the point of common coupling. DPS hosts the current file and the August 2025 versus February 2026 redline. Both Con Edison and National Grid NY (Niagara Mohawk) process those applications through an Interconnection Online Application Portal. Con Edison’s public page points to PowerClerk, split at 50 kW. National Grid uses its own IOAP. Electronic submittal is required. Paper copies of Appendix F do not replace the portal.
That is where the sameness ends. Con Edison’s dense secondary networks in the five boroughs, and a large Westchester book, force Screen A questions the SIR writes in plain language: is the PCC on a networked secondary system. National Grid’s upstate book is mostly radial distribution with pockets of network and a different construction standard set (ESB documents in National Grid’s DG guides). If you paste a Con Edison network note onto an Albany feeder, the reviewer spends the first pass deleting fiction instead of checking inverter settings.
Appendix F of the February 9, 2026 SIR is the shared shopping list. Solar PV and BESS applications need a single-line that shows number, ratings, connection configurations, and type of major electrical components; proposed inverter protection settings; transformer data if you have a GSU; control, grounding, and metering transformer connections. Other generator types need a three-line. The utility may still require a three-line for PV and BESS on three-phase, including the wiring configuration at the PCC and an exact representation of the existing utility service. That last phrase is where most of our bounce-backs live.
What Con Edison wants the SLD to prove
Con Edison’s interconnection page, checked September 2026, splits small DG at 50 kW and below from large DG above 50 kW through 5 MW. Small DG: application, site plan, single-line, equipment specifications. Large DG: those items plus a three-line and proof of site control, with a $750 application fee. CESIR may follow screens. Cost sharing can apply on encumbered lines. None of that belongs on the municipal roof plan as a cloud of utility jargon, but all of it has to be true on the utility diagram.
On network services, the SLD has to show the existing service as it is, not as a textbook radial. Call out the network protector if it is there. Show the service configuration, transformer, and meter location that match the account. If the crew cannot photograph the service because it is in a locked vault, say so in the narrative and get Con Edison’s existing-service sketch before you invent buswork. Screen 1 in Appendix G asks whether the existing service, transformer, and network protector are adequate for the aggregate DER. Your drawing is how the reviewer starts that question.
Con Edison also cares that the AC disconnect is reachable. PECO is famous for the 24/7 accessible disconnect note; Con Edison reviewers ask the same practical question in a different portal. If the disconnect is in a rear yard behind a locked gate, the site plan and the SLD have to agree on how a Con Edison tech opens it. Do not bury that in a general note on sheet E-001 that the building examiner never reads.
For NYC DOB solar permit jobs, keep FDNY roof access and DOB NOW sheet titles off the utility SLD unless the PCC is actually on the roof. Mixing FDNY 6-foot paths into a Con Edison file does not help the DG desk, and putting network protector notes on the DOB roof plan usually earns a comment that has nothing to do with fire.
What National Grid NY wants the SLD to prove
National Grid’s published DG best-practice notes, still cited in 2026 installer meetings, are blunt for CESIR: PE-stamped single-line, site plan with major equipment, inverter tech sheets, islanding data, BESS sheets when applicable. UL 1741 SB has been the inverter expectation since January 1, 2023 for National Grid. SIR Screen B now writes UL 1741 including Supplement B into the statewide screen, so Con Edison is not a free pass on SB either. If you swap inverters after CESIR, National Grid wants the replacement to meet the same certification that was studied.
The SLD has to match the site plan on feeder, parcel, and equipment location. National Grid reviewers compare the applied feeder to the proposed parcel. They look for service configuration consistent with their ESB figures, protective device ratings, and grounding equipment. Grounding transformers and GSU impedance show up on three-phase jobs that a residential Con Edison microinverter SLD never needed. If the job later needs a recloser or DTT, that is a CESIR output, not a guess you should draw on day one. Draw the customer-side equipment you are actually installing. Leave utility-owned upgrade clouds off the AHJ set.
Field audit language from those same National Grid notes is useful even before you build: they fail jobs for construction that does not match the accepted PE-stamped drawings, missing dual locking, missing permanent three-line in the field, missing pole or switchgear labels. That means the interconnection SLD is not a portal thumbnail. It is the sheet the witness test is scored against. If the field moves a disconnect, the as-built has to move with it before PTO.
SIR Appendix F requires a New York PE seal on drawings for interconnection at 1,000 volts or greater. Plenty of National Grid CESIR jobs sit at primary voltage. Plenty of Con Edison residential jobs sit at 120/208 or 120/240 and never hit that threshold. Do not stamp a 7 kW residential Con Edison SLD “because National Grid always wants a PE.” Do stamp, or get ready to stamp, when the voltage or the CESIR checklist says so. PE stamping belongs on the same set the utility will audit, not on a leftover sales layout.
Shared SIR items both desks still miss
Account and meter numbers for existing services. Satellite-backed site plan with the proposed interconnection point if you are requesting new service. Letter of authorization so the contractor can act as agent. UL 1741 certificate that matches the inverter model on the SLD, not a cousin SKU. Manufacturer data sheets for interface equipment. For 50 kW and below, the signed standard contract. For above 50 kW, property owner consent (Appendix H) and site control. Hybrid or storage jobs need Appendix K with the operating mode that matches the SLD: export, non-export, or limited export. If the SLD shows a battery and Appendix K is blank, the file is incomplete on arrival.
Inverter protection settings belong on the diagram or on a settings table the diagram points to. “Per manufacturer default” is not a setting. SIR Appendix F lists proposed inverter protection settings as a drawing requirement. National Grid’s witness-test notes ask for inverter-specific protection parameters. Put the trip values where a reviewer can find them without opening a 200-page manual.
Conductor and conduit notes can stay light on the utility SLD if the permit design electrical sheet already carries the AHJ schedule. They cannot contradict each other. The wire size on the Con Edison SLD and the DOB single-line have to be the same string. The module count on the National Grid SLD and the Albany roof plan have to match. That is the mismatch that burns both clocks.
How we split one job into two drawings without lying
Keep a utility interconnection diagram and a municipal electrical sheet that share a equipment schedule. Same inverter model, same AC kW, same PCC, same disconnect manufacturer. Extra National Grid protection boxes, Con Edison network notes, CESIR-only reclosers, and cost-sharing callouts stay on the utility sheet or on a diagram marked “interconnection, not for building permit.” If a town clerk uploads every PDF in the folder, a sheet titled for the utility still gets read as a construction drawing. Name files so the AHJ can ignore the CESIR sketch.
When the SIR three-line arrives after the 25 percent CESIR payment, do not revise the already-permitted AHJ set unless the PCC, service, or customer equipment changed. Update the utility three-line and the test procedure. If the field changed the service entrance, both sets need a revision, and the PE who sealed the high-voltage package needs the as-built. Permission to operate is not the building permit, and a DOB sign-off does not close a National Grid witness test.
If you are filing both utilities in one week, intake has to name the utility before anyone copies last Tuesday’s SLD. National Grid NY vs ConEd interconnection review is a drawing problem, not a branding problem. Send the survey, the service photos, the equipment list, and the account number. We will tell you whether the sheet is a single-line, a three-line, or a PE-sealed primary package before the portal clock starts.