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?
There only appears to be a single state (Colorado) where collecting rainwater is strictly regulated,[0] and in most states (31) it is not illegal/no regulation/even encouraged. A further 9 states regulate and encourage rainwater collection, and then Texas provides incentives to do so. The remaining 5 states simply have regulations around rainwater collection.
Thanks for the link. I had come across this link [0], where:
>Both Texas and Ohio allow the practice for potable purposes, which is frequently excluded from other states’ laws and regulations
Also there it notes most Western states disallow or regulate it.
From your link any state that says water rights are regulated, as far as I can tell means water rights exist seperately from property rights, and typically belong to the state.
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.
Well, I mean, let's say, for the sake of argument, solar panels had a tendency to burst into flames and cause not only the house they were installed in but also neighboring houses to go up in flames. Would it still be unreasonable to ban them? If not then you've conceded the principle and we're back to arguing about the specifics of each case.
As far as I know the historical justification for legitimate government rule is social contract theory -- hand over some of your rights to protect the remainder of them.
There is some debate about how this should play out in the real world. Technically, solar panels, batteries, ovens, etc all can catch on fire and cause my neighbors to as well. Should we ban all of them?
Sometimes what we do is to try to protect rights through a heavy handed authority (outlaw something), and sometimes through the court system (sue for damages).
Anyways, what seems to be clear is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved.
> Technically, solar panels, batteries, ovens, etc all can catch on fire and cause my neighbors to as well. Should we ban all of them?
Maybe not, but there are lots of regulations on how they have to be made and installed and I think that's quite reasonable.
> But I think what we can see here is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved.
I don't think it's that simple. A lot of things you can do would just be unsafe for the occupants of the home, but since it is likely you are not the only person who will ever live in the home it is harmful to an unwitting next resident if you are doing a bunch of work that is not up to code. And that's before we consider that a lot of work will be done by contractors for people who, let's face it, don't have any idea how to judge whether work is safe. Whether or not this particular regulation is reasonable, I think the government does have a compelling interest in regulating what you do with your home in this way.
You are entitled to disagree me with me and take the opposite stance: that government should get involved in our lives even when what we are doing does not affect another's rights.
I don't think the idea that what we are doing does or doesn't affect another's rights is that clear-cut. What if I'm renting the place out? What about more abstract rights, like, I don't know, not having to smell rotting food you left out? The harm there isn't exactly direct and there's a judgment call as to what is reasonable and what is too far.
It's not at all clear cut, it's just the best starting point (in my eyes, the most moral starting point), and it is the starting point we have gone from.
The fact it is not clear cut is why we have courts and history of law to draw from. Things like what you say, or such as building something on your property that destroys another person's view, were once taken to court, and the rulings established precedent.
My point is that it's important to remember this is what we have been trying for all along, because sometimes that point gets missed.
>From what I gathered in reading the three articles there's a state code that mandates that homes must be hooked up to the electrical grid. With out seeing the law or it's history (e.g. when it was mandated), it's difficult to say if it's malice on the part of utilities or just a poorly worded law from 50 years ago.
Electricity is regulated, like water, because it's something people have a hard time living without in modern society. It's perfectly reasonable for the state to mandate that properties have power as a protection for tenants.[0]
I haven't looked into this myself, but this comment makes a lot of sense. I'm from a state where there are a lot of old laws on the books that are both discriminatory and greatly infringe upon basic rights of people. The prevailing argument is that it would cost too much manpower to actually rewrite all of those laws, so we just deem those laws as clearly outdated and unenforceable while tending to other matters.
The law may just be old without ill intent. The power companies also may be dragging their feet to modernize as well, but slow bureaucracy is the one of the few arguments that makes sense to me.
The main reference is a page giving guidelines for what sort of equipment is required for connecting a solar system to the grid for net metering.
Of course there will be some requirements for that, and most systems that use the grid for "storage" aren't setup to power the house when the grid is down. Thus the system that isn't capable of powering the house without the grid is off when the grid is off.
The question of whether one can operate a house with solar+battery when the grid is down is not really answered by the article.
Only for installations that are connected to the grid, which pays taxes (the so called "sun tax"). AFAIK installations not connected to the grid are legal and don't have to pay taxes.
The difference seems to be that in Florida you can't live in a house that is not connected to the grid.
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...
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 with Solar Panels in Florida"
A qualified electrician installs a "transfer" switch. It's two breakers tied mechanically so that one position feeds the house with line power, flipping it, the other is the generator.
I have one to keep my refrigerator, well and furnace running.
Does anyone actually still believe this? The idea that [journalism I agree with] is fair and [journalism I disagree with] is fake news was dead by last year. I can't think of a single general audience publication that hasn't transitioned to clickbaity, half truth nonsense. I have largely stopped reading the NYT and the WSJ for this reason. I still like the economist, but even they feel like they are slipping at times.
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.
IFLScience is not "journalism in general." The acronym stands for "I F*%ing Love Science" and it got started as a Facebook page made popular for posting science-joke memes. The site and FB page, both run by Elise Andrew, are both fairly disliked in the Science Online community for misrepresenting studies, disseminating false information, and chronic copyright violations as she blatantly steals photos and art from others and fails to give credit.
This wikipedia article covers just a little of what Elise Andrew is guilty of:
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 cares.
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.
You need a similar permit in Germany as well, but the government has pushed hard to make getting a permit as quick and easy as possible. Germany has also invested massive amounts of money to upgrade their grid infrastructure to handle all those solar panels feeding electricity back into the grid. Florida's grid looks completely different and simply isn't built to handle the same number of solar cells.
All directly grid-connected inverters have backfeed protection built-in.
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)
> 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?
1. Florida does not provide any subsidies for solar installs (only the Federal 30% tax credit)
2. Florida utilities continue to lobby directly against solar, while sinking money into non-renewable generation technologies (this is changing, as some Florida utilities have thrown in the towel and have begun to plan to install utility scale solar and battery storage)
3. Unlike other states, utility power in Florida is already very inexpensive (~6 cents/kwh) generated from coal, natural gas, and nuclear, so there's less incentive than in other states to move to rooftop solar.
The same state rules require a breaker-switch on the solar panel feed, disconnecting it from the grid [1]. However, customers are not allowed to use that switch - it's for FPL use only.
So add another switch before this switch, inside the house maybe, so you can switch it on or off. I read (some) of the FPL rules about this and nowhere did it say you cannot do this, it simply says so that the electrical workers can shut it off to the grid from outside, if necessary.
Read the law. It is illegal to have a home not connected to the grid at all. so there is no danger about a backfeed since the 2 systems never meet.
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.
Some local power companies had that inserted into city code.
I think you need to read the law. Nothing in the law requires you to be connected to the grid. Local laws and rules may require you to be connected to the grid to obtain a certificate of occupancy, but I have found no Florida state law requiring you to be hooked up to a power grid.
The law that is consistently referenced in these mostly conspiracy blogs is just a set of rules regarding offsetting your power consumption from a utility company with a renewable energy generator. It requires you to have a switch that they can access. The articles like this one https://boingboing.net/2017/09/18/rep-ray-rodrigues.html from Cory Doctorow, a Canadian, fundamentally misunderstand the law. They extrapolate from this sentence "Customer-owned renewable generation shall include a utility-interactive inverter, or other device certified pursuant to paragraph (4)(b) that performs the function of automatically isolating the customer-owned generation equipment from the electric grid in the event the electric grid loses power." that you have to shut off your power if the grid loses power. That's fucking nonsense and a complete misreading of that rule. All it requires if that you have a switch that the power company can use to disconnect your power generating house from the grid so that their linemen don't die when they are doing maintenance on a line.
I invite you to find anywhere in this law or any other Florida state law that says you must be connected to the power grid.
>What FPL has done is require that solar installations get signed off by their electricians.
No, what the state has done is required that if you're going to hook up to the grid to supplement your solar installation, you should do it safely. Of course FPL and the other utility companies have lobbied to benefit their bottom line, but spreading misinformation is not beneficial in the fight against them. It muddies the waters so that no one even knows what to fight against.
I have no idea why you are being downvoted. This thread makes me think eternal September has arrived on HN. People are running their mouths without any basic knowledge of electricity and national electric codes.
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 panels come into the inverter (law in Australia) so you can manually turn them off, thus ensuring none of the house has power.
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.
As the other reply says, it's quite possible to power electronics from the cells (but not directly). What you need to look for are the types of regulators and batteries used in caravans. Of course you cannot connect such a system directly to the grid.
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 likely no batteries, some inverters can provide emergency power without them.
Batteries obviously work much better for that scenario allowing them to buffer energy. But nearly all grid tie systems installed do not have batteries due to extra cost and maintenance.
I think you have to get permission to ensure that not too many people in your immediate area have over 5kw, otherwise the grid in that area might not be able to handle so much being pushed back in without upgrades.
Its half a barn roof, I believe its was around $15k installed.
Main issue I have seen with the law in FL for them is that they are net metered but the power bill can't go negative. So if they produce more than they use the power company doesn't have to pay them for it, also they always get a service charge no matter what. So their power bill ends up being about $20 a month no matter what which is just the service charge.
That's how net metering works for me in Oregon, too - I earn credits by over-producing all summer, and then use some of them up until Jan 1, as they won't roll over year-to-year. As a result I gave power away for free to the grid for several years, but now I have a plug-in hybrid to soak up the surplus.
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.
Not just that, but it also can make the whole grid unstable under certain conditions. Electricity is an EM wave and if everybody could leak the out of the phase energy into the grid it would create interferences and oscillations all over it.
All solar inverters that would meet any kind of standard synchronise to the frequency of the grid. They also cut out when they detect the grid is down.
For battery systems, they can keep going (like a UPS), but require an 'anti-islanding' switch which automatically isolates the system from the grid when it goes into that mode.
At least, this is all the case in in Australia (and Europe I believe), where we have some of the most households feeding the grid from solar in the world (as a percentage of homes).
There's no citation or research about the laws in question in this article, or the Miami New Times article it cites as a source, or the WFTV article that it sources.
From what I gathered in reading the three articles there's a state code that mandates that homes must be hooked up to the electrical grid. With out seeing the law or it's history (e.g. when it was mandated), it's difficult to say if it's malice on the part of utilities or just a poorly worded law from 50 years ago.
Electricity is regulated, like water, because it's something people have a hard time living without in modern society. It's perfectly reasonable for the state to mandate that properties have power as a protection for tenants.
It certainly sounds like the power company is doing nothing to accommodate those who would like power by having policies in place for reporting solar hookups to protect linemen or offering bi-directional meters to avoid billing irregularities, but there's no evidence presented to support the assertion that they lobbied to prevent solar.
Florida has/had historically issues with power, especially as populations rose; the utilities were only willing to build generators if they could be guaranteed recovery. All this wasn't just about homes, but the power needs of the entire commercial, public, and safety infrastructure too.
With that said, this article is fucking bonkers. It makes almost no sense and as you noted, the sources don't even line up with what they suggest they do. IFLS is bullshit.
Unless I'm missing something, the law doesn't require renewable energy generators to be hooked up to the grid. It just establishes some rules requiring you to safely connect to the grid if you are going to offset your power supply from the utility company with a renewable energy source. That's absolutely reasonable. Beyond that, anyone who has bought a house would also want some guidelines and code inspections to be done on something as complicated as a solar install, which this rule also requires if you are going to get your install certified to be interconnected with the power grid and receive excess generation credits.
Exactly, my point too. If you back feed, you usually get like 3.5c for each kwh you produce. The only problem is you generally pay 3x that to purchase when you are required to use electricity (et al. cloudy day). The shut-off thing is just common sense "don't kill they neighbor" doctrine.
No where else in any other state has there been a "backfeed the grid" issue. I have never heard of any electrical technician getting killed due to solar panels backfeeding the grid. So when you remove those whats left?... lobbyists.
When generating emergency power is outlawed, only outlaws will have emergency power.
I can't see how anyone would think this was a good idea. I expect respect for the law to plummet faster than you can say "Dad. Can you please give us non-rotten food?"
You can point fingers and say it was them lobbying, but everyone who didn't do something to act in the opposite direction could have influenced but didn't.
I say this not to blame more but to motivate people to take responsibility and to act, to stop people from thinking they're powerless (no pun intended).
In other words, lobbying is great and there should be more of it!
I think people here are disappointed not so much in this particular outcome, but the harmful effects of a political system that is nearly entirely fueled by lobby money.
I mean, in other countries they call that "corruption".
One particular outrageous mob-lob in germany is the driving instructor caste.
Basically, the old generations, are allowed to drive everything with there old driving allowances.
Now for every generation coming after that, new driving allowances are needed, per various class of vehicle, wether you have a trailer attached and so and and so forth.
Its the new kind of mob activity, that uses the law to pressure people into paying for unneeded services and obstruct buisness for new buisnesses.
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.
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 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?
The future buyer of your home would like to ensure the safety and correctness of the wiring. The future buyer also needs to know what the limits of the system are, so that they don't accidentally overload it, and if it is overloaded that it performs appropriately (i.e. stop instead of catching fire).
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.
The requirement to use the same wiring precludes the home owner from having an additional low-volate wiring in the house.
Most modern devices use low voltage nowadays, check what any of the power supply units for your laptop, phone, etc output to the device.
Low-volate is less dangerous, and international regulations (IEC 60449) reflect that. I'm not an expert, but it is likely that besides the law discussed here, such wiring would be legal even without approval. It definitely is in Germany, and to say the least, we like regulations.
I'd be surprised if it precluded the use of low voltage wiring because there are standards for it as well.
The issue is that the law ends up with houses needing the 120VAC connection to the grid. I don't think that doesn't mean there can't be a secondary low voltage line, but ianal.
It doesn't sound like nonsense to me. It could definitely be dangerous to feed high voltages back into the powered-down grid.
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 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 power to the house, but only if the house is temporarily disconnected from the grid while doing so.
Florida law effectively requires (1) and forbids (2). "Effectively" because, although a switch is present which could disconnect from the grid temporarily to allow the solar system to power the house, only the power company is permitted to operate it, and in fact the power company is permitted to physically lock the switch to prevent disconnection from occurring, thus preventing the solar power system from being used when the grid is down.
The net result of these policies is that, yes, it is in fact not legally possible to continue supplying power to your house from solar when the grid is down.
The ability to lock it is almost certainly for lock-out, tag-out reasons. They will come ensure you're disconnected and then just one person has the key to the lock they put on it. That one person isn't the supervisor, but the person doing the work. If more than one person work on it, they will all put locks on it.
What it's intended for is irrelevant. What's at issue is they can just leave a lock on there permanently, as a means of leaving you completely without power when the grid goes down.
That makes no sense. If the grid power is out, they want that switch turned off. If its not, you're pushing power to the grid. If its off, you're not and you are using it for your home power needs.
No, the thing that is actually happening is the switch is not getting flipped to disconnect when the grid goes out. Which means the solar panels also need to stop producing power, and leave the house entirely without power.
That is literally the thing people are complaining about here.
Isn't it necessary to have the grid as a backup consumer?
What happens if you over produce solar energy, but don't have the necessary means to dissipate it?
It looks like FPL has a Net Metering program, which a lot of power companies offer. In short, you get credits on your bill for the power that goes back into the grid. It used to be that some power companies actually write you a check.
It's not necessary. If you produce more than you use consistently then a good sized battery bank may be all that you need. A lot of new home appliances are so energy efficient they are starting to see use on sailboats.
Solar cells can produce at load. It's not like panels that aren't connected are melting down, like nuclear.
Solar panels get less efficient as voltage increases, hitting zero at a reasonable point. This is very convenient, since all you need is a buck converter in the battery charger and any unused power can be ignored.
The power still exists, of course. It just ends up heating the panels, which are fine with that.
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 uncontrollable distributed hot lines.
The problem is that utility company distribution system operators can issue clearances (ensuring a de-energized state) on their systems disconnects, but not on individual home system disconnects. Its not a tough problem to work around though, all the troublemen would have to do is to ensure the line is dead before installing their shorts and grounds, if the line wasn't dead, they'd stop work and figure out which network was backfeeding the line they were trying to work on.
Since it is completely distributed, you would need to have an ability to disconnect it pretty much everywhere, and as such could disconnect it locally. Eg. if a new house is being connected, disconnect the adjacent houses, install it, then reconnect (assuming a linear grid between the three houses).
Ah, thanks for the reply. I misunderstood your original comment. I thought you were talking about interfacing with existing utility company distribution networks instead of being completely distributed.
Florida has strong "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground" laws. If you can convince a jury you were afraid, you can do pretty much anything you want on your own property.
I understand that. But if you're so fearful that you think a code inspector is there to harm you, you probably shouldn't be allowed to own a gun. Instead you should seek medical care.
I replaced my water heater last spring and when the inspector came out to check the work, it was pretty much just inconvenient. I didn't have any murderous impulses.
I fail to immediately see on what grounds would inspector "come out to check" your water heater. I imagine you don't give back anything to water grid or any other grid. Maybe it is a concern that incorrectly installed water heater might explode and damage other people's property? Is it a gas heater?
Otherwise, you are not 15 years old that need supervision, why would anybody come to take a peek in your life? Since when do you owe them anything?
What if tomorrow an inspector will come to check the state of your underwear? Where does it end?
If a law is somehow justifiable but I still don't like it, then I might break it. If there are consequences for that, then I'll accept those consequences.
For example, if my shoddy water heater install causes my house to burn down and my insurance refuses to cover the damage because it wasn't up to code, then that sucks, but it's ultimately my responsibility.
Of course it is your responsibility. But as long as it is, it's nobody else's business.
Laws should only regulate how a person interacts with other entities. It has absolutely no standing in regulating what an adult person does with themself and their belongings.
> Laws should only regulate how a person interacts with other entities.
Right, which is why building codes make sense. The "other entities" involved are the people who may buy your house someday, and the first responders who may enter your house in an emergency to save you or your loved ones.
I have expectation not to be judged for something I might or might not do.
It is really that simple. You are assuming I might be a criminal for not having my plumbing in order. But I'm innocent until guity, so please get lost with all your inspectors together.
> For example, if my shoddy water heater install causes my house to burn down and my insurance refuses to cover the damage because it wasn't up to code, then that sucks
What if you're still inside the house when it catches fire, causing me (a firefighter) to enter the house to attempt to rescue you, and I'm killed in the process. Does that also "suck"? I imagine my wife and kids might feel a bit more strongly about that...
I'm arguing for codes, not against them. My comment about accepting consequences that might suck was in relation to the absurd hypothetical about allowing the government to come inspect my underwear. I really can't think of a situation where my tighty whiteys could result in the death of a firefighter.
I think the person I was arguing with was trying to find out if there was any line that the government could cross that I would think is unreasonable and of course there is. Building codes, as they are today, aren't anywhere near that line though.
The stuff about the bi-directional meter is warblegarble.
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.
In 2015 about 10% of Hawaii's residential customers had solar installations (0.5% is the national average). Such a large intermittent source of electricity caused problems for the utility companies and led to limitation on buying back electricity from these solar installations. Naturally, this has slowed installation of additional residential solar in Hawaii. See [1] and [2].
Hawaii has a goal of 40% renewable by 2030 but they have a number of technical hurdles to get over.
TBH I think it makes sense that all houses should be connected to the electrical grid. Just like all houses should have proper sanitation facilities.
This is a small edge case for people who want to be self sufficient even though it makes no economic sense, as FPL does have net metering in place.
If they didn't have net metering in place I'd understand this, but considering they do and at first glance looks like a very reasonable program, is it really worth altering city and state building codes to allow it? The city/state would have to pay for very expensive specialists in off grid solar/battery/inverter setups to ensure they were at parity as a simple grid connection.
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.
"Renewable generator systems connected to the grid without batteries are not a standby power source during an FPL outage. The system must shut down when FPL's grid shuts down in order to prevent dangerous back feed on FPL's grid. This is required to protect FPL employees who may be working on the grid."
Note the "without batteries" exclusion a similar exclusion applies to the cutoff switch when the grid is down, to protect line workers.
It sounds reasonable but the way to do this is with a device called a transfer switch. It's used on any proper installation of local power such as a home generator. When the utility power is out, the transfer switch cuts over to local power. There is no feedback to the outside power lines; the transfer switch disconnects them. Are home generators illegal also?
Seems like requiring such a switch would have been a more reasonable regulation in this case. Isn't this already legally required in other countries, when feeding power back into the grid?
> Are home generators illegal also?
If the quote is accurate then they are not: "Renewable generator systems". So why does it make a difference to law makers? This sounds utterly bonkers
Note 7 on the same page linked above would seem to set up the guidelines for grid tie switches.
The language here appears similar to the way the NEC is written, which can seem confusing unless you use it all the time (as I do). If one had a transfer switch, the renewable generator would no longer be grid tied.
The NEC is full of statements of this style, and often without specific references to the underlying section that defines, e.g. the times where a transfer switch is legal. The code expects you to view it as a whole, and be familiar with the interlocking sections.
"All renewable energy systems that do not utilize a U.L. 1741 listed inverter to feed power to FPL require a manual, visual load break disconnect switch"
My generator backup system has this. The generator is fed into the box and routed through a breaker. This breaker will only switch on if the mains is off. In addition to safety, it just make sense to not dump your generator's energy into the grid.
My gf's parents have this. They can back feed into the house by disconnecting the power lines. From what I understand the utility companies still do not like working on lines when they hear generators because some people do not isolate and can back feed into the grid somehow. At least that's what I've been told.
Some people do stupid things like plugging a generator into a wall socket to feed the house without a transfer switch. I would be wary too if I were a utility worker.
As an aside, I find it hard to believe those people work on lines without shorting them out. That would be like cleaning a gun without unloading it first. I'd need to see some actual statistics on electrocution hazards due to backfeed before I sign on to this particular moral panic.
Frankly, I don't think the utilities consider backfeed to be as dangerous to their workers as it is to their business models. It's not in their financial interest to compete with their own customers.
Is that the actual law/regulation, or just the FPL guideline? Also, wouldn't a transfer switch make this irrelevant, as the system is no longer 'connected to the grid'?
This isn't a Florida-specific thing. It's a requirement of the National Electrical Code (NEC) that grid-tie inverters shut down on grid power loss, for exactly the stated reason. Every commercially produced grid-tie inverter has that feature built in.
179 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] thread[0]https://energy.gov/eere/femp/rainwater-harvesting-regulation...
https://extension.psu.edu/rainwater-cisterns-design-construc...
>Both Texas and Ohio allow the practice for potable purposes, which is frequently excluded from other states’ laws and regulations
Also there it notes most Western states disallow or regulate it.
From your link any state that says water rights are regulated, as far as I can tell means water rights exist seperately from property rights, and typically belong to the state.
Anyways it is not as bas as I had believed.
0-www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/rainwater-harvesting.aspx
There is some debate about how this should play out in the real world. Technically, solar panels, batteries, ovens, etc all can catch on fire and cause my neighbors to as well. Should we ban all of them?
Sometimes what we do is to try to protect rights through a heavy handed authority (outlaw something), and sometimes through the court system (sue for damages).
Anyways, what seems to be clear is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved.
Maybe not, but there are lots of regulations on how they have to be made and installed and I think that's quite reasonable.
> But I think what we can see here is that if there is no potential in one harming another's rights, there's no legitimate reason for government to get involved.
I don't think it's that simple. A lot of things you can do would just be unsafe for the occupants of the home, but since it is likely you are not the only person who will ever live in the home it is harmful to an unwitting next resident if you are doing a bunch of work that is not up to code. And that's before we consider that a lot of work will be done by contractors for people who, let's face it, don't have any idea how to judge whether work is safe. Whether or not this particular regulation is reasonable, I think the government does have a compelling interest in regulating what you do with your home in this way.
The fact it is not clear cut is why we have courts and history of law to draw from. Things like what you say, or such as building something on your property that destroys another person's view, were once taken to court, and the rulings established precedent.
My point is that it's important to remember this is what we have been trying for all along, because sometimes that point gets missed.
In Australia lots of people have off-grid systems. You just switch b/w the two.
>From what I gathered in reading the three articles there's a state code that mandates that homes must be hooked up to the electrical grid. With out seeing the law or it's history (e.g. when it was mandated), it's difficult to say if it's malice on the part of utilities or just a poorly worded law from 50 years ago.
Electricity is regulated, like water, because it's something people have a hard time living without in modern society. It's perfectly reasonable for the state to mandate that properties have power as a protection for tenants.[0]
I haven't looked into this myself, but this comment makes a lot of sense. I'm from a state where there are a lot of old laws on the books that are both discriminatory and greatly infringe upon basic rights of people. The prevailing argument is that it would cost too much manpower to actually rewrite all of those laws, so we just deem those laws as clearly outdated and unenforceable while tending to other matters.
The law may just be old without ill intent. The power companies also may be dragging their feet to modernize as well, but slow bureaucracy is the one of the few arguments that makes sense to me.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15283664
Of course there will be some requirements for that, and most systems that use the grid for "storage" aren't setup to power the house when the grid is down. Thus the system that isn't capable of powering the house without the grid is off when the grid is off.
The question of whether one can operate a house with solar+battery when the grid is down is not really answered by the article.
This gives a bit more background: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/10/spain-a...
The difference seems to be that in Florida you can't live in a house that is not connected to the grid.
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.
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 with Solar Panels in Florida"
A qualified electrician installs a "transfer" switch. It's two breakers tied mechanically so that one position feeds the house with line power, flipping it, the other is the generator.
I have one to keep my refrigerator, well and furnace running.
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.
This wikipedia article covers just a little of what Elise Andrew is guilty of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elise_Andrew#Criticism_and_acc...
Links to this site have no business on HN.
If you have a completely segregated solar installation no one cares.
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.
(a) If the grid goes down, your solar also is deactivated
(b) If the grid goes down, your house is powered separately by solar, but disconnected from the grid.
In Germany the second is more common, while in parts of Florida, the first is required.
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)
1. Florida does not provide any subsidies for solar installs (only the Federal 30% tax credit)
2. Florida utilities continue to lobby directly against solar, while sinking money into non-renewable generation technologies (this is changing, as some Florida utilities have thrown in the towel and have begun to plan to install utility scale solar and battery storage)
3. Unlike other states, utility power in Florida is already very inexpensive (~6 cents/kwh) generated from coal, natural gas, and nuclear, so there's less incentive than in other states to move to rooftop solar.
Source: Florida resident
https://www.duke-energy.com/_/media/pdfs/rates/peratespefres...
[1] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-18/florida-you-cant-us...
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.
Some local power companies had that inserted into city code.
The law that is consistently referenced in these mostly conspiracy blogs is just a set of rules regarding offsetting your power consumption from a utility company with a renewable energy generator. It requires you to have a switch that they can access. The articles like this one https://boingboing.net/2017/09/18/rep-ray-rodrigues.html from Cory Doctorow, a Canadian, fundamentally misunderstand the law. They extrapolate from this sentence "Customer-owned renewable generation shall include a utility-interactive inverter, or other device certified pursuant to paragraph (4)(b) that performs the function of automatically isolating the customer-owned generation equipment from the electric grid in the event the electric grid loses power." that you have to shut off your power if the grid loses power. That's fucking nonsense and a complete misreading of that rule. All it requires if that you have a switch that the power company can use to disconnect your power generating house from the grid so that their linemen don't die when they are doing maintenance on a line.
I invite you to find anywhere in this law or any other Florida state law that says you must be connected to the power grid.
https://www.flrules.org/gateway/RuleNo.asp?ID=25-6.065
>What FPL has done is require that solar installations get signed off by their electricians.
No, what the state has done is required that if you're going to hook up to the grid to supplement your solar installation, you should do it safely. Of course FPL and the other utility companies have lobbied to benefit their bottom line, but spreading misinformation is not beneficial in the fight against them. It muddies the waters so that no one even knows what to fight against.
Also you can run the system in autonomous mode, no risk at all for worker, even it's a lie.
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 panels come into the inverter (law in Australia) so you can manually turn them off, thus ensuring none of the house has power.
Simple.
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 likely no batteries, some inverters can provide emergency power without them.
Batteries obviously work much better for that scenario allowing them to buffer energy. But nearly all grid tie systems installed do not have batteries due to extra cost and maintenance.
Now that 280 watt panels are becoming common, up to 7kw is a "standard" install.
I don't know about three phase.
Main issue I have seen with the law in FL for them is that they are net metered but the power bill can't go negative. So if they produce more than they use the power company doesn't have to pay them for it, also they always get a service charge no matter what. So their power bill ends up being about $20 a month no matter what which is just the service charge.
If so, it demonstrates that the article is, uh, not well researched.
The inverter doesn't backfeed for emergency power, it just has a separate output wired to a single outlet for emergency power.
But the article would have us believe that it is illegal to use those inverters in Florida.
You are describing a rational, reasonable regulatory system. :) Sadly, not the one in force.
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.
For battery systems, they can keep going (like a UPS), but require an 'anti-islanding' switch which automatically isolates the system from the grid when it goes into that mode.
At least, this is all the case in in Australia (and Europe I believe), where we have some of the most households feeding the grid from solar in the world (as a percentage of homes).
From what I gathered in reading the three articles there's a state code that mandates that homes must be hooked up to the electrical grid. With out seeing the law or it's history (e.g. when it was mandated), it's difficult to say if it's malice on the part of utilities or just a poorly worded law from 50 years ago.
Electricity is regulated, like water, because it's something people have a hard time living without in modern society. It's perfectly reasonable for the state to mandate that properties have power as a protection for tenants.
It certainly sounds like the power company is doing nothing to accommodate those who would like power by having policies in place for reporting solar hookups to protect linemen or offering bi-directional meters to avoid billing irregularities, but there's no evidence presented to support the assertion that they lobbied to prevent solar.
Oh FPL 100% did that. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election...
With that said, this article is fucking bonkers. It makes almost no sense and as you noted, the sources don't even line up with what they suggest they do. IFLS is bullshit.
Unless I'm missing something, the law doesn't require renewable energy generators to be hooked up to the grid. It just establishes some rules requiring you to safely connect to the grid if you are going to offset your power supply from the utility company with a renewable energy source. That's absolutely reasonable. Beyond that, anyone who has bought a house would also want some guidelines and code inspections to be done on something as complicated as a solar install, which this rule also requires if you are going to get your install certified to be interconnected with the power grid and receive excess generation credits.
https://www.flrules.org/gateway/RuleNo.asp?ID=25-6.065
I can't see how anyone would think this was a good idea. I expect respect for the law to plummet faster than you can say "Dad. Can you please give us non-rotten food?"
I say this not to blame more but to motivate people to take responsibility and to act, to stop people from thinking they're powerless (no pun intended).
I think people here are disappointed not so much in this particular outcome, but the harmful effects of a political system that is nearly entirely fueled by lobby money.
I mean, in other countries they call that "corruption".
Basically, the old generations, are allowed to drive everything with there old driving allowances.
Now for every generation coming after that, new driving allowances are needed, per various class of vehicle, wether you have a trailer attached and so and and so forth.
Its the new kind of mob activity, that uses the law to pressure people into paying for unneeded services and obstruct buisness for new buisnesses.
I said nothing of the sort.
Lobbying is not the only way to influence. How about voting and educating the population for starters?
Powerwalls would still be viable and legal right?
Can you be "connected" but not make use of the power, ie have a second circuit? :)
Just toying with loopholes here.
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.
Most modern devices use low voltage nowadays, check what any of the power supply units for your laptop, phone, etc output to the device.
Low-volate is less dangerous, and international regulations (IEC 60449) reflect that. I'm not an expert, but it is likely that besides the law discussed here, such wiring would be legal even without approval. It definitely is in Germany, and to say the least, we like regulations.
The issue is that the law ends up with houses needing the 120VAC connection to the grid. I don't think that doesn't mean there can't be a secondary low voltage line, but ianal.
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.
I said as long as the interface is according to spec. There are effective mechanisms to prevent this kind of feedback.
> shoddy home grid system
Then have an electrical engineer review and approve it. Still no reason to forbid it.
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 power to the house, but only if the house is temporarily disconnected from the grid while doing so.
Florida law effectively requires (1) and forbids (2). "Effectively" because, although a switch is present which could disconnect from the grid temporarily to allow the solar system to power the house, only the power company is permitted to operate it, and in fact the power company is permitted to physically lock the switch to prevent disconnection from occurring, thus preventing the solar power system from being used when the grid is down.
The net result of these policies is that, yes, it is in fact not legally possible to continue supplying power to your house from solar when the grid is down.
Would be more informative than the link.
That is literally the thing people are complaining about here.
https://www.fpl.com/clean-energy/net-metering.html
Solar cells can produce at load. It's not like panels that aren't connected are melting down, like nuclear.
The power still exists, of course. It just ends up heating the panels, which are fine with that.
Since it is completely distributed, you would need to have an ability to disconnect it pretty much everywhere, and as such could disconnect it locally. Eg. if a new house is being connected, disconnect the adjacent houses, install it, then reconnect (assuming a linear grid between the three houses).
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.
I don't see why one would have to deal with spurious/frivolous visits from officials without their own request.
Otherwise, you are not 15 years old that need supervision, why would anybody come to take a peek in your life? Since when do you owe them anything?
What if tomorrow an inspector will come to check the state of your underwear? Where does it end?
Yes.
> Where does it end?
It's all contained in the building codes and the local ordinances. It's pretty well defined actually.
If a law is somehow justifiable but I still don't like it, then I might break it. If there are consequences for that, then I'll accept those consequences.
For example, if my shoddy water heater install causes my house to burn down and my insurance refuses to cover the damage because it wasn't up to code, then that sucks, but it's ultimately my responsibility.
Laws should only regulate how a person interacts with other entities. It has absolutely no standing in regulating what an adult person does with themself and their belongings.
Right, which is why building codes make sense. The "other entities" involved are the people who may buy your house someday, and the first responders who may enter your house in an emergency to save you or your loved ones.
It is really that simple. You are assuming I might be a criminal for not having my plumbing in order. But I'm innocent until guity, so please get lost with all your inspectors together.
What if you're still inside the house when it catches fire, causing me (a firefighter) to enter the house to attempt to rescue you, and I'm killed in the process. Does that also "suck"? I imagine my wife and kids might feel a bit more strongly about that...
But I don't see how a person owes something to you over a hypothetical situation.
I think the person I was arguing with was trying to find out if there was any line that the government could cross that I would think is unreasonable and of course there is. Building codes, as they are today, aren't anywhere near that line though.
fuck them all....
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.
Hawaii has a goal of 40% renewable by 2030 but they have a number of technical hurdles to get over.
[1] http://e360.yale.edu/features/will_new_obstacles_dim_hawaiis...
[2] http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-opens-20-m...
This is a small edge case for people who want to be self sufficient even though it makes no economic sense, as FPL does have net metering in place.
If they didn't have net metering in place I'd understand this, but considering they do and at first glance looks like a very reasonable program, is it really worth altering city and state building codes to allow it? The city/state would have to pay for very expensive specialists in off grid solar/battery/inverter setups to ensure they were at parity as a simple grid connection.
Is it illegal to even just own a solar panel that is not connected to the grid?
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.
The actual laws are more reasonable:
"Renewable generator systems connected to the grid without batteries are not a standby power source during an FPL outage. The system must shut down when FPL's grid shuts down in order to prevent dangerous back feed on FPL's grid. This is required to protect FPL employees who may be working on the grid."
Note the "without batteries" exclusion a similar exclusion applies to the cutoff switch when the grid is down, to protect line workers.
https://www.fpl.com/clean-energy/net-metering/guidelines.htm...
> Are home generators illegal also?
If the quote is accurate then they are not: "Renewable generator systems". So why does it make a difference to law makers? This sounds utterly bonkers
The language here appears similar to the way the NEC is written, which can seem confusing unless you use it all the time (as I do). If one had a transfer switch, the renewable generator would no longer be grid tied.
The NEC is full of statements of this style, and often without specific references to the underlying section that defines, e.g. the times where a transfer switch is legal. The code expects you to view it as a whole, and be familiar with the interlocking sections.
"All renewable energy systems that do not utilize a U.L. 1741 listed inverter to feed power to FPL require a manual, visual load break disconnect switch"
The UL 1741 specification describes inverters that do precisely that switching function (https://www.homepower.com/articles/solar-electricity/equipme...)
So basically, "You have to install a safe system that won't fry our workers when they're trying to restore power."
I support that.
Frankly, I don't think the utilities consider backfeed to be as dangerous to their workers as it is to their business models. It's not in their financial interest to compete with their own customers.