Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

fpl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 180 posts

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#81

Post by dundercoder »

SigmundA wrote: post #77
homero wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not exactly accurate. My Dad has a 7kw array grid-tie no battery system in FL. It has a single emergency outlet that will provide up 1500w when the grid is down. With the power being down last week from Irma it was able to output at least a 1000w load even with heavy overcast. It will off course shut off if it can't provide the attached load. If you have a solar system for home its going to have an inverter, but most…

7kw? Amazing! How large is the array? (sq ft) How much did that set him back?

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#84

Post by stephen_g »

denzil_correa wrote: post #6

I'm waiting for someone to justify this with a warped sense of "economics".

So far it's just been technical reasons that would be a problem if pretty much all standards-compliant inverters didn't already have safety features to mitigate them...

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#85

Post by kbutler »

yardie wrote: post #45
jaimex2 wrote: post #16

ok, so its illegal to power your home with solar... but is it illegal to charge a battery with solar in Florida? Powerwalls would still be viable and legal right?

It's illegal to occupy a house that is not connected to the local power grid. The power wall would effectively be redundant and mostly useless. You have to get your power from the power company.

You could plug your freezer or microwave into your battery backup.

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#86

Post by grecy »

dundercoder wrote: post #81
SigmundA wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly accurate. My Dad has a 7kw array grid-tie no battery system in FL. It has a single emergency outlet that will provide up 1500w when the grid is down. With the power being down last week from Irma it was able to output at least a 1000w load even with heavy overcast. It will off course shut off if it can't provide the attached load. If you have a solar system for home its going to have an inverter, but most…

7kw? Amazing! How large is the array? (sq ft) How much did that set him back?

In Australia 5kw is extremely common (20 250 watt panels) - out of pocket it's ~$5000 AUD.

Now that 280 watt panels are becoming common, up to 7kw is a "standard" install.

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#87

Post by microcolonel »

Rather, thanks to regulation it is illegal to power your home with solar panels in Florida. Lobbyists are not legislators.

That said, power grids are incredibly difficult to coordinate, there is almost no describing it. You need extra installed capacity if some endpoints are also generating stations.

Personally I would not really want to backfeed to the grid anyway, so if this regulation applies even when you don't hook up to the grid, that seems pretty ridiculous.

Either way it doesn't seem like you'd need laws to keep people from hooking up their panels to the grid, unless they need to cancel out a law that says they must be able to hook up their solar arrays to a grid.

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#88

Post by maxerickson »

ubernostrum wrote: post #49
gnode wrote: post #17

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.

The controversy is over what happens when the power supplied via the grid goes out. There are generally two options that could be taken here, in light of the argument that a powered house connected to an unpowered grid is unsafe: 1. Any solar system on the house would be required to shut off at the same time, leaving the house without power from any source, or 2. A solar system on the house could continue to provide…

Is there some guidance from the state somewhere that makes [2] clear?

Would be more informative than the link.

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#89

Post by LeifCarrotson »

rout39574 wrote: post #50
grecy wrote: post #32

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…

The spark for the article, so I understand, is that regulation advocated by FPL made it illegal for homeowners to access that switch. So, in the wake of the hurricane, it was explicitly forbidden for folks with solar systems to power their own homes. You are describing a rational, reasonable regulatory system. :) Sadly, not the one in force.

That's incorrect. To install a generator, which is legal, you are required to have and to use a manual transfer switch.

I don't know where the full building code which would require this is, but this describes it in part:

> Florida State Generator Law 526.143 > Alternate generated power capacity for motor fuel dispensing facilities

> As of June 1, 2007, all retail outlets selling motor fuel must be able to operate its distribution loading racks using an alternate generated power source ... Installation of appropriate wiring, including a transfer switch shall be performed by a certified electrical contractor.

Re: Florida Power and Light: Regulations for home solar installations

#90

Post by neilwilson »

dogma1138 wrote: post #25
willvarfar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The same regulations exist in Germany also there is no way around them, in the UK if you want to either backfeed or connect a solar (or any other power source ) installation directly to your house mains you have to tick a ton of boxes including giving the power company control over the feed (basically when they shut down the power they also shut you down). If you have a completely segregated solar installation no one…

Not the case in the UK at all.

Up to 4Kw the power distributor has to accept your connection and it is done on a post reporting basis. Over 4Kw you fill in a form and get generator permission from the distributor. I got mine in a few weeks.

Once it is grid connected, then the inverters isolate if they lose grid power. Since the UK has fairly good grid connections that rarely if ever happens.

Never a problem - except for the guns and butter brigade. Fortunately most of those who were that way inclined moved to the Americas 100 years or so ago.

Post reply on HN