[RE-wrenches] Fire fighters safety class

Dave Palumbo palumbo131m at gmail.com
Mon Sep 19 19:13:37 PDT 2016


Wrenches,

 

I will be presenting a class on "Solar Home Fire Fighter Safety" to our
local volunteer fire department this coming weekend. I will tour them around
my off grid neighborhood so that we can review various PV, micro-hydro,
different inverters and battery systems, various back-up generators -
diesel, LP gas, tractor PTO as well as standard gasoline generators. Then we
will visit  a 7 year old 5kW net-metered PV system on a 75 year old home (no
battery back-up).

 

.         I'm sure that there will be questions about Tesla Power Wall
battery packs as Green Mountain Power is selling and leasing these in
Vermont. I have no experience with Lithium Ion batteries at this point and I
could use some advice for the fire fighters.

.         Would you be more, less, or equally concerned entering a home with
back-up Li batteries vs AGM's vs Standard LA's?

.         There are some 500kW and larger solar farms going in locally
recently. Anything that fire fighters need to know about these fenced in
power generators? Say, vs utility sub-stations that they may be familiar
with?

 

Thoughts on pulling utility meters to disconnect power from homes that have
a fire on the premises? Arc flash back is a real issue and these volunteer
squads are not going to have full flashback protection. What are the odds of
serious injury of pulling a meter to disable utility electricity to a home
on fire? Many times there is no other way to quickly disconnect a home from
utility power. 

 

As a side note, Vermont does not require licensed electricians for
residential work and only a couple of municipalities require inspections. It
can be a little scary, but always interesting.

 

Are there any good You Tube videos on fire fighter safety and homes with
solar electric systems that you recommend?

 

Thanks for your time,

 

David Palumbo 

Independent Power LLC

462 Solar Way Drive

Hyde Park, VT 05655

802-371-8678 cell

802-888-4917 home

 

 

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