[RE-wrenches] Panel Fire + DIY Ebooks

[Dan Fink]

Hi all -- Thought I'd better chime in now. We are going to start seeing 
a lot of this (fires, electrocutions, lawsuits), and RE Wrenches are 
going to have to be aware of it and be prepared for repair calls, 
consulting, and even "expert witness" court testimony.

Since besides private RE consulting, I work for a website focused on DIY 
renewable energy, I buy books and Ebooks and review them. About 8 years 
ago I got one for $12.95  about cheap PV modules. I imagine the guy made 
a few hundred bucks on this paper book. It had such tidbits as getting 
smashed solar panels from traffic sign rental places, buying solar 
cells, gluing them to plywood and wiring them together, and how older PV 
modules (and batteries) are available for pennies on the dollar from RE 
installers because "homeowners often upgrade to newer PV panels." Yeah, 
right.

Now someone is getting rich, thanks to an affiliate program-- the 
Earth4Energy Ebook sells for $49.95, there's a DVD too, and has the same 
misinformation as the old book, updated with color photos and plans for 
an impossible wind turbine (8 foot PVC blades, small tape drive motor, 
no furling system, 1000 watts @ 20mph -- yeah, right). This Ebook (85 
pages, large type, lots of white space) sells online under dozens of 
different names now. They all review each other, with glowing reports 
about how the utility pays THEM and how YOU can do all this too for only 
$200 in materials!

What's scary and dangerous is that the ads all imply grid tie 
applications for this homebrew stuff:
"Don't pay for your electricity any longer...
Instead, the power company will pay YOU!"

But in the site FAQs:
"Will I learn how to wire the renewable power into my homes AC breaker 
panel?"
"Wiring your own power into the AC breaker panel is very dangerous and 
is illegal unless it is done by a qualified electrician."

And then from the Earth4Energy Ebook:
"If you do not wish to go as far as connecting your system to
the breaker panel you can simply run your appliances
straight from your AC inverter. Running your appliances
straight from the inverter is easy and a very cheap option."

I assume this means the homeowner is to run extension cords around the 
house to each appliance? Oh my.

I am currently working with other DIY renewable energy authors to get 
some real reviews up about Earth4Energy and all its affiliates. They are 
selling tens of thousands of copies of this crap.

The average person that buys these $49.95 Ebooks has NO clue about how 
any RE system, wind or PV, off grid or on, works. The websites cleverly 
do not mention that the $200 you spend for building your own plywood PV 
panels and toy wind turbines doesn't include a grid tie inverter, 
balance of system components, and signoff by a licensed installer or 
electrician...and at least where *I* live, the county inspector would go 
ballistic if he saw PV cells glued to plywood.

Jeff Yago -- you might look into this. I can send you a copy of 
Earth4Energy, I DID buy it after getting complaints here about the Ebook 
and DVD, and the whole topic (even without naming names) might make a 
great column for you in Countryside or Backwoods Home.

As someone who tries to encourage DIY RE, this whole thing is 
mortifying. It gives the entire RE industry a bad name (not just the DIY 
folks) because the implication is that professional RE installers are 
ripping the customer off with $1000 PV modules, when the customer could 
just build their own.

We have a nice list of installations where folks that built our DIY wind 
turbines (a modified Hugh Piggott design) from our book "Homebrew Wind 
Power" (ISBN 978-0-9819201-0-8) have been successfully permitted and 
signed off on by the inspectors for both off-grid and islanding 
grid-tie. That's another reason this Earth4Energy Ebook thing infuriates 
me....the wind turbine information in there is both impossible in 
claimed power output and dangerous in application.

----------
Wrenches, be prepared for a storm of questions about this stuff....it's 
everywhere now.

On the bright side -- I always charge double my normal hourly rate to 
diagnose and fix RE systems that I didn't design and install. AND, for 
the professional RE wrench with NABCEP certifications and an 
electrician's license, being an "expert witness" in a court case can be 
a very good paying gig!

DAN FINK
http://www.otherpower.com/




> // 
> What this one is is a $50 book that tells you how to build your own 
> windmill, PV module.... Yada Yada... This particular one is a guy named 
> Michael Harvey. Anybody know him?