Articles from Salon, Miami Herald, and other sources say essentially the same thing.
This seems utterly and completely ridiculous on its face, and yet another case of lobbyists writing legislation purely in their clients’ self-interest and public servants not pushing back in favor of their constituents.
The only reason I am not using stronger invective is that FPL is justifying this on a technical issue I don’t really understand involving potential for harm to workers when reconnecting a house to the grid. Given that they can do this if a house has a functioning generator (rather than solar panels) suggests to me that these are merely weasel words.
Anyone familiar with the nuts-and-bolts of solar systems and residential power infrastructure who can chime in on the technical side? Please tell me there is a relatively simple safeguard that could be installed so I can unleash all of the vitriol I’ve been saving back.
If they haven’t required a watchacallit device with the use of solar panels to stop current from going back into the power lines when they are disconnected then it’s reasonable when there’s going to be a lot of guys working on downed lines. If there’s no exception when any current feedback is prevented then it’s just a stupid law.
ETA: And it required no more than being able to disconnect the main when the solar panels are in use either.
I can kind of see their logic. It would appear as if the disconnect should be arranged to disconnect the the customers entire home (at the meter) so that customer could use his solar source while FPL worked in safety on their power system.
But then when power is restored to that section of the grid the disconnected customers would be calling in wanting to be reconnected so that they could run air conditioning etc. But FPL crews would be too busy working on other areas of outages to come to each home and throw the switch. So, the solar customers would become a last priority in the system and would be without sufficient power for air conditioning which is pretty close to being a necessity in FLA.
Yes. But keep in mind that, if it fails, lives are at risk. So it would have to be reliable and it would have to be periodically tested which would most definitely mean it would cost more to build, purchase, and operate.
Automatic throw-overs are used by hospitals and others to go to emergency power but those throw-overs lockout the original source until qualified people can switch them back. The throw-overs are developed so that its an either/or choice for the source of power but not a “both”.
I just had solar panels installed, and I asked about this very thing. I was told that the panels automatically shut down if the power is cut, because there’s a chance that they could continue to keep the powerlines charged… possibly resulting in electrocuted linemen.
If we’d gotten a storage battery, though, then we’d be able to keep the panels going during an outage- because the power’s going into the battery, rather than the incoming powerlines.
Same, and I got the battery. One detail I didn’t know was that the panels themselves have no way to regulate the flow of power they are producing - that’s controlled by the solar energy they get. If the amount of solar kw exceeds the max flow the battery can handle, it’s all or nothing so in the event of a power outtage where the grid connection is disrupted, then the batteries will also stop charging because they can’t handle that level of flow. During normal operation that excess can be diverted to the grid, but if that is not available then the only other option is to cease charging.
In some areas users of solar panels can sell power back to the grid. While this isn’t a problem during normal circumstances when the main power lines are energized it can be a serious problem during emergencies where the mains are supposed to be dead and service people are working on them.
This raises the question to me though, what about when the lines are being worked on during normal times? The panels will still be able to put power back into the system so the service people should be checking for energized lines as part of their SOP at all times. Hell, if it were my job I’d be checking even it it weren’t a part of the procedure.
They have the solar, wind and any other back sale entity mapped out and will take steps to disconnect them before working on that part of the grid.
Keep in mind that most of the time they use insulated poles, tools, gloves etc to work on the lines energized.
Taking a section of a distribution grid down is usually reserved for cleanup of mass outages.
The Boing Boing piece surprised me since I immediately thought of the isolation switches used with normal generators. They protect linemen from errant current fed back into the grid.
Turns out that the “net metering” used with solar (you sell excess power to the utility) complicated things greatly. The inverters that convert and feed solar DC back into the grid have standards that called for a rapid disconnect when the grid fails. So called smart (and doubtless more expensive) inverters have recently been standardized) and are just starting to appear on the market. The “UL 1741 SA” standard allows them to disconnect from the grid and still function locally.
So, if I may summarize, it seems that the technical issues are real but potentially solvable.
In that case, it seems to me that the most appropriate way to handle this would be somewhere at the user agreement level. If you want to have solar panels that feed power back to the grid, you must have inverters that rapidly disconnect in the case of an outage. There could always be an approved device list maintained by FPL, from which you must choose. If I was FPL, I might insist that you purchase it from FPL and have them install it (although that leads to maintenance and liability issues perhaps FPL doesn’t want to take on). Or, maybe the owner has to have the device inspected by some properly-certified electrician once a year.
Dealing with it at the State legislature level is what sets my alarm bells ringing. I can see a role for the State - maybe the devices have to be State-permitted and inspected on installation or something, but even that should happen through a regulatory agency.
Having State law be simply, “No, you can’t have your solar panels during the 10-day blackout,” just seems wrong.
There’s also the fact that the inverters on solar panels don’t have circuitry to provide the appropriate 60 cycle/second AC; they just sync themself to the powerline frequency. Without that, the random frequencies they created might play havoc with electronic devices in your home.
Of course, inverters could be designed to generate a proper 60 cycle current. But that would make them more expensive. Solar installations (and windmills & generators) that are designed as standalone rather than supplemental do include such frequency-controlling components. Solar = battery installations can work as standalon power, so they include this more expensive circuitry.
Here in Minnesota, an automatic disconnect is required in any such supplemental power source. Mine (and I think most solar panel ones) is a fully automated transfer switch (disconnect & re-connect). It shuts the panels off when line power fails, and will restart them when line power comes back on. (There is a 5-10 minute safety delay, so they don’t reconnect while workers are still fixing the line – line power must stay on continuously for 5-10 minutes before my solar panels come back on.)