RE Equipment Standards and Ratings [RE-wrenches]

[John Raynes]

<x-flowed>
At 06:46 PM 4/18/02 -0700, you wrote:


>YOU FOLKS ARE DEVELOPING THE STANDARDS, AND ARE THE DE-FACTO RATING 
>ORGANIZATION!

Hi Richard,

In the end, there still needs to be standard procedures, adopted on an 
industry-wide basis, that serve as the guidelines for doing the testing and 
reporting the results, as Bill states so well.  That's not disagreeing with 
what you're saying, as I'll explain.

The discussion going on here is EXACTLY the type of discussion that goes on 
in every standards writing process, in every industry I ever worked 
in.  It's lively, contentious, even heated at times, but at the end of the 
day, what usually emerges is a consensus.  The thing that seems to be 
missing here is a national professional/trade organization that is formally 
guiding the process toward a widely understood and agreed-upon 
goal.  Without that, we all just get frustrated.

I'm not talking about nebulous 3rd parties, and I'm not talking at all 
about testing agencies.  I'm talking about standards writing, by itself, 
pure and simple.  Within every maturing industry, there always winds up 
being at least one organization, made up of trade professionals like this 
group, that takes on the mission of writing, publishing and promoting 
performance standards for that industry.  In our case, it's not obvious 
what organization that will be, although we do know who's been doing the 
good work to date, the work that will form the basis of the standards that 
emerge.  To Bill and all the others, thanks, and keep up the good fight.

An effective standards-writing organization will be national in scope, it 
must be willing to take on the job, and it must have or earn the necessary 
credibility, so that the standards it produces will be widely 
recognized.  The last point is very important, because often the 
manufacturers have to be dragged to the table kicking and screaming.  I 
don't think that's the case here, but once a formal process picks up a head 
of steam, you never know.

Sandia?  No, it's not their mission to write standards for private 
industry, I don't think, but they and NREL would be a major contributors.

UL/NEC?  No, they're mission is public safety.  Performance standards are 
outside their scope.

IEEE?  Maybe, if they (and we) are interested.  They certainly have the 
credibility, and this would be well within the scope of their 
standard-writing activities.  If the wrenches don't take this bull by the 
horns, the utilities eventually will in a few years time, and IEEE is the 
likely place where they would go anyway, so it merits consideration.

ASES?  I'd like to see it start there, because they have our interests most 
at heart.  Are they interested, and can they marshal the resources?

Any other suggestions?

A well written standard covers not only methods, but deals with ALL the 
endless details of test configurations (where to locate the shunts, where 
to connect the meter leads, how accurate the meters must be, etc, etc, 
etc).  Also, the exact formulas for computing every specified result.

Once you have the standards, you don't need the ETLs and Sandias to conduct 
the tests, in order for them to have weight.  Any third party with the 
right equipment can conduct them.  There may still be disputes about 
whether the tests were performed correctly, but not about the tests themselves.

Am I missing something?  Who are we looking to, to take the PV system 
performance standards job, and run with it?  And where should it end up?

Regards,
John Raynes
RE Solar
Sandy UT

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: michael.welch at homepower.com

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Qcs.bz9JC9
Or send an email to: RE-wrenches-unsubscribe at topica.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================


</x-flowed>