[RE-wrenches] FSEC Approval Required for Permit?

[Jason Szumlanski]

Dave,

I think you are missing the point. We are (unfortunately) not doing 200
system in the very near future, but if we are to be able to market PV to
our customers, we can't sit in their living room and tell them that it's
going to cost $X and X amount time to have a system certified for their
specific roof and their specific number, brand, and wattage of module.
Kits don't work in this business, and requiring certification for every
conceivable combination of solar energy system is prohibitively time
consuming and costly.

We have never been required to give an FSEC system certification to
obtain a permit. We have only been asked to provide module certification
and component listing information, which I believe is reasonable and
appropriate.

I'll contact you off-list to discuss this particular situation and
provide the name of the person who provided me the information.

Jason Szumlanski
Fafco Solar


-----Original Message-----
Message: 9
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:09:45 -0400
From: Dave Click <daveclick at fsec.ucf.edu>
To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] FSEC Approval Required for Permit?
Message-ID: <4C07E1D9.6080307 at fsec.ucf.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=ISO-8859-1

Jason, I don't believe that you're working with correct information and 
I'm not sure who you spoke with here at FSEC. Please contact me offlist 
so we can discuss this further.

Also, we'd be pretty excited to learn that you were installing 200 
systems in the state. Carry on!

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [RE-wrenches] FSEC Approval Required for Permit?
From: Jason Szumlanski <Jason at fafcosolar.com>
To: re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
Date: 2010/6/3 09:57

> Hi Wrenches,
>
> Has anyone dealt with a jurisdiction that requires FSEC or similar
> system approval as a prerequisite for obtaining a PV permit? Although
we
> have installed many systems in a particular jurisdiction in our area,
> they just rejected a permit application because we do not have an FSEC
> system certification on this system (24 Enphase microinverters). We
are
> having a hard time getting them to explain from where the requirement
> came. It seems like a nonsense roadblock to me. I can't imagine what
> purpose an FSEC certification would serve in the case of
microinverters.
> As long as you are using a module on Enphase's compatibility list and
> the module itself has FSEC certification, can you think of any logical
> reason to jump through this hoop?
>
> On that note, I contacted FSEC to see what it would require to certify
> Enphase microinverter systems. They are telling me that we would have
to
> apply for one system, and then apply for "similar" systems if the
number
> of inverters changes. That doesn't make any sense to me. Are we
supposed
> to submit applications for 1, 2, 3...50...150 module systems? I doubt
> they have time to deal with the paperwork for hundreds of similar
system
> applications. Imagine dropping 200 similar system applications in
their
> inbox to cover all quantities of microinverters.
>
> Jason Szumlanski
> Fafco Solar
> Cape Coral, FL