51–60 of 180 posts
This seems to be straight from a dystopian movie or book I'm not sure it isn't a joke. Is the "get off my lawn" a thing of the past in US? What business have US gov, or anybody else for that matter, to do with what I do on my property?
Well a lot I'd say, given that your home has to conform to tons of local building codes.
Do they have the authority to enter your home and check what kind of power you are using? What does it stem from? Can you shoot them for trespass? The same thing WRT rain water which is mentioned in comments. To me it seems like an unreasonable invasion of household borders: trying to regulate something confined in a household.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well a lot I'd say, given that your home has to conform to tons of local building codes.
I think his point was that it's not a legitimate role of government to interfere in the details of your private life inside your own home, especially when they affect no one else.
The title of this article is quite misleading. It's not saying that it's illegal to have solar panels powering your home, only to have a solar system that does not tie into the grid. Then making it seem that requiring anti-islanding protection is some act of malice.
I think the title is right in spirit. The law forbids you to use power from your own solar panels if the grid is offline. This is a nonsense requirement. Also the law requires you to use the same inhouse wiring as the grid for power from the solar panels. Why should anyone care about how you wire your own home, as long as your interface with the outside world is according to spec?
A future buyer may, thinking the house is to code, attempt to connect the house to the grid. If it is not wired appropriately that can also cause risks to the occupants.
Future contractors also need to know the set up of the system. Being done differently could possibly very real safety risks.
Neighbors would like to ensure that your house does not catch fire, risking their houses.
I can see an opportunity here for the grid to become owned/operated by the people, not massive corporate greed machines. A house who has excess sells it to neighbors who do not have the solar capacity where neither are connected to the normal grid. Throw some technology into automatically shutting down the generator side every X hours unless its given authorization wirelessly. This foolproofs the root cause of uncont…
The article is trying so hard it's hard to tell what the actual issue is. It is dangerous to backfeed the grid -- you may kill the line worker coming to fix a blown transformer or downed line. In some places a grid connection is considered necessary by the building code. If so, you must use proper equipment.
Yes, it's required for generators too. You have to install some sort of switch (I forgot what it's called) so the house power doesn't feed back into the grid and kill a lineman. The title is very misleading as well. Just goes to show that Fox News and their ilk aren't the only ones who do fake news, it's journalism in general. Also, the title is an outright lie: "Thanks to Lobbying, It's Illegal to Power Your Home wi…
What FPL has done is require that solar installations get signed off by their electricians. And they delay, delay and delay that certification process. Meanwhile, you are paying for the cells and installation and it sits unused indefinitely.
If they can delay the process long enough, it effectively becomes illegal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So don't backfeed the grid when the grid is "off" That has nothing to do with powering you own home from you own solar panels. When the grid-tie inverter senses the grid is down (it could even be scheduled outage for maintenance) - it stops feeding the grid and only powers the house. When it senses the grid is back it ties to the grid again. If you need to work on the house, there can be a master switch where the pan…
You can't run loads from cells directly, you need a battery and inverters. Or every cloud will fluctuate the voltage and watts massively and your electronics will fry. In the olden days, flickering incandescent would be fine.
What the requirement is talking about is operating a grid tie system before FPL upgrades the meter to one that measures in both directions in a way that meets their requirements. This is a sensible requirement, not a ginned up excuse.
(all the quotes are coming from a linked grid interconnection guideline https://www.fpl.com/clean-energy/net-metering/guidelines.htm... )
I wonder if there is actually any legal requirement to have a grid interconnection. The article isn't real convincing.
The title of this article is quite misleading. It's not saying that it's illegal to have solar panels powering your home, only to have a solar system that does not tie into the grid. Then making it seem that requiring anti-islanding protection is some act of malice.
I think the title is right in spirit. The law forbids you to use power from your own solar panels if the grid is offline. This is a nonsense requirement. Also the law requires you to use the same inhouse wiring as the grid for power from the solar panels. Why should anyone care about how you wire your own home, as long as your interface with the outside world is according to spec?
And your home isn't your home forever. One day you will die and someone will inherit your shoddy home grid system. Electrical wiring regulations exist for a reason.
The article is trying so hard it's hard to tell what the actual issue is. It is dangerous to backfeed the grid -- you may kill the line worker coming to fix a blown transformer or downed line. In some places a grid connection is considered necessary by the building code. If so, you must use proper equipment.
How come solar panels are ubiquitous elsewhere? Is it that e.g. Germany is risking the lives of line workers? Is Florida doing the right thing, or the wrong thing?
Bigger installations can have automatic switching from the grid to the inverter, much like an uninterruptible power supply. (This is technically possible with smaller installations as well, just uncommon, since it doesn't make a lot of sense)