RE and Regulations, both UL and IEEE [RE-wrenches]

[Richard Perez, Home Power magazine]

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Hello Wrenches

I want to agree with Christopher Freitas on UL being a roadblock in 
the way of RE progress. I have no bones to pick with safety and the 
necessary function of certifying gear which is safe, I just think 
that UL has become reactionary.

And these sort of regulatory problems don't stop with UL. We've also 
got specs for grid-tied inverters that are bogus, essentially written 
by utilities and rubber stamped by the IEEE.

Here's a preview of a short article which will appear in the 
June/July issue of Home Power. I am hoping that Wrenches will lead 
the way in getting the standards for utility intertied inverters on 
some reasonable and realistic standard.

Get Organized!

Utah just became the 35th state to pass a net metering law. Is our 
struggle to bring homemade renewable energy on-grid just about done? 
No such luck. As with many legal issues, the devil is in the 
details....

At a recent solar business seminar held by Energy Outfitters, more 
than 35 RE dealers heard presentations by industry representatives, 
including three grid-intertie inverter manufacturers. One of the 
major grid-intertie problems discussed was the Institute of 
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 519 and 929 standards. 
These standards set power quality and anti-islanding requirements for 
grid-intertie inverters, and are included in most state net metering 
laws.

Many dealers and manufacturers are finding that grid-intertie 
inverters jump off-grid, or even refuse to connect to the grid at 
all. When utility grids are undervoltage, overvoltage, or have too 
much distortion, inverters programmed to IEEE standards will not 
connect.

This isn't a safety issue. Safety is taken care of by other 
grid-intertie inverter standards (UL 1741). This is an issue of the 
grid's power quality. What we are discovering is that in many areas, 
the grid is far too funky to allow inverter intertie. The utilities 
are holding our RE inverters to standards that they cannot maintain 
themselves!

I view these IEEE standards as just another in a long series of 
roadblocks that utilities have put in the way of grid-intertied, RE. 
Having a state net metering law is irrelevant if the inverter is held 
to standards that will not allow it to connect to the grid. The 
further irony is that our grid-connected RE could help the utilities 
clean up their grid power quality problems!

It's time to get organized again. The only way to effectively change 
this situation is for us, state by state, to question the IEEE 
standards. We need to go to our state PUCs and governments, and lobby 
for change. I'm sorry that our work didn't end with passing net 
metering laws. Now we have to go for the devil in the details.

If you want to help, e-mail me. I'll act as an information 
clearinghouse until individual state groups get organized. We've got 
some work to do.

Access
Richard Perez, Home Power
mailto:richard.perez at homepower.com
http://www.homepower.com

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