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

[Bill Brooks]

Richard,

Thank you for your response. To say that the utilities set the standards is
a fundamental misunderstanding of the standards process. No more than a
third of the voting committee is allowed to of utility affiliation. Having
been one of the most active members of the committee that developed the
standard, I resent being classified as being a utility (although I am my own
utility and get all my electricity from the sun). It appears to be utility
driven because ultimately the utility has been given the job of utility
system safety by us, the voters. If you want to change that, than vote out
the utility commissions and folks that appoint them.

As far as whiners, I have spent as much time as anyone on this list working
toward net metering rules. An interesting aside, you will find that there
are several utilities throughout the country that have adopted Net Meter
even though their state legislature refused (see www.dsireusa.org).

Anti-establishment rhetoric definitely plays well with many consumers
because utilities can be very monopolistic and often exhibit a major
attitude. I am not trying to exonerate the utilities in general, they
definitely don't deserve it in general. But I work with these people on a
daily basis, and I can tell you from experience that I can produce more
action with a well-formulated argument than a 100 solar bozos screaming
"death to the utilities." Now that rapport has been honed over more than a
decade of consistent work, but it has produced positive results when nothing
else had a chance.

There is a place for the Greenpeace-style rhetoric to help me look like a
moderate, but those tactics are almost always seen as proving the point made
by obstructionist utilities that solar people are technical morons and just
want to make the newspapers.

The situation with the revocation of the Trace SW listing could have
completely disrupted the solar industry in California. However, because we
had the ear of the utilities, we were able to snatch the situation back from
the brink of disaster and now those installed system are officially allowed
to continue operating without upgrade. Was it easy?--no it took a lot of
tough arguments, and testing and proving that the equipment was safe. Would
negative rhetoric and utility-bashing have had a positive effect?--NO it
would have put our industry in California in the dark ages and could have
erased over a decade of hard-fought rights to operate on the utility system.

Net metering is only piece of the puzzle and technical standards are only
piece of the puzzle. If we don't look at implementation issues in a holistic
framework, we will miss critical pieces of the puzzle and the picture will
make no sense. I fully understand and share the frustration of working with
many utilities, but what about local code officials and what about fire
marshals--and the list goes on. Is Home Power going to be a Don Quixote and
fight all these windmills (couldn't resist the renewable analogy) or work
constructively to overcome these issues so that its readers (most of whom
live on the grid) can realize their dream of being truly energy independent?

Bill.



-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Perez, Home Power magazine
[mailto:richard.perez at homepower.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 1:50 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: RE: RE and Regulations, both UL and IEEE [RE-wrenches]


Hello Bill and Wrenches

Well, Bill, I clearly see that we disagree on the issues of RE and
regulation. Here are some responses to your post.

I didn't state that UL and IEEE were in cahoots, I stated that the
utilities set the standards for UI inverters and the IEEE rubber
stamped these standards.

In terms of solar folks being "whiners", it was these "whiners" who
did the political work necessary to get net-metering laws passed in
35 states. Bill, can you show me just one instance where RE net
metering legislation was introduced by a utility?

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