Solar leads in Chicago, from public record.
Chicago Department of Buildings published 6,358 permits in the last 90 days, and 1,177 of them mention work this trade sells into. A roof replaced in the last 18 months with no solar on record, or a panel upgrade that just opened up service capacity.
Counted with a single aggregate query against Chicago Department of Buildings’s own permit descriptions, dataset ydr8-5enu, when this page was last rebuilt. It is the pool, not the feed: scoring and per-rule exclusions cut it down from here, and what reaches a rep is the part that clears 65.
5 filings worth a call.
These rules run against the words an applicant in Chicago wrote on the form, not against the category the city filed it under. That distinction matters: Chicago Department of Buildings groups a large share of work under "Permit – Express Permit Program", which tells you nothing about the trade it feeds.
Solar PV install
Direct solar permit, the homeowner has already chosen an installer, so this is a competitive-displacement or attach lead.
Battery storage
Storage without solar on record is the strongest solar attach signal there is.
Service capacity upgrade
A service upgrade removes the single most common blocker to a solar install.
EV charger
EV owners adopt solar at several times the base rate, and the load increase makes the economics obvious.
Roof replacement (solar precursor)
A new roof with no solar is the classic precursor: the structure is sound and the homeowner is already spending on the envelope.
How do I find solar leads in Chicago?
Read Chicago Department of Buildings's permit feed daily and filter for the filings that predict your work. A roof replaced in the last 18 months with no solar on record, or a panel upgrade that just opened up service capacity. EarlyIntent does this automatically and scores each one.
Which Chicago permits matter for solar?
Solar PV install, Battery storage, Service capacity upgrade, EV charger, Roof replacement (solar precursor). Filings matching none of these are never shown, which is what keeps the feed worth reading.
How fresh is it?
Chicago publishes daily and EarlyIntent reads it daily. The newest record in Chicago Department of Buildings's dataset was dated 2026-09-08 at the last check, 1 days old. A feed with nothing newer than 21 days is pulled from the product rather than served.
How many solar filings does Chicago produce?
1,177 in the last 90 days, roughly 92 a week, which is 19% of everything Chicago Department of Buildings filed in the window. That is the pool before scoring: the feed is the part of it that clears 65.
What does a solar territory in Chicago cost?
A territory is one trade in one geography, and Chicago ZIPs are sold individually. Starter carries three, Pro ten and exclusive, Scale forty. Reading the feed is unmetered; only owner-contact lookups draw down credits, because those are the only part that costs money per record.
Are these leads exclusive?
On Pro and above, yes, no other paying customer receives solar leads for the same ZIP. It is enforced by a database constraint, so two people cannot be sold the same territory.