Hello,
I am now in a debate with the metering dept. of a local utility. They don't
want a PV system to be energized and tested until a bidirectional electronic
meter is installed. They insist that an old plain Jane mechanical meter can
be damaged and is a safety concern if power is pushed
Here in NY (upstate), the utility (NatGrid, NYSEG) will not agree to an
interconnection until they have replaced the existing unidirectional kWh
meter with a bidirectional one. This is the signal that the PV system can be
energized and connected to the grid.
-Glenn
From:
No, and just above every utility meter I see is an old style mechanical.
Chris
On 8/12/2011 9:45 AM, Kirk Herander wrote:
Hello,
I am now in a debate with the metering dept. of a local utility. They
don’t want a PV system to be energized and tested until a
bidirectional electronic meter is
Same here in Southwest Florida. However, our testing usually lasts exactly
the amount of time between installation completion and meter replacement. We
have never heard a complaint by the utility that the system was energized
before the bidirectional meter was installed, despite the policy
I just asked a guy I know in utility metering, and he confirms that
there's no basis for the utility's concern. Their claim that backfeeding
is a safety hazard could be an attempt to dissuade some non-PV folks
from flipping their meters to steal power. Or that could be their
justification to
City of Palo Alto Utility (CPAU) in the Bay Area in CA does not install a
new meter when PV systems are added to a house. Quote from section 8 of the
2010 CPAU PV Partners
Handbookhttp://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=14980
:
8.1 Electric Meter
CPAU does not
People have been backfeeding thru their meters long before UL1749 came
along.
The meter mfgr probably has the standards that their design meets, including
UL, NEMA etc that will put any complaints to rest.
Jim Duncan
North Texas Renewable Energy
NABCEP Certified Solar PV
Installer No.031310-57
That is absolutely true. We have a customer who sent in his
interconnection agreement and assumed the meter would be swapped. It
never happened, the utility did not swap the meter, and energy sold to
the utility actually showed up as purchased energy. The utility
acknowledged the oversight in
I successfully litigated (with help from the PUC) our local utility company
(PPL) for requiring a $500.00 fee (which violated the CA net metering law) to
replace the bi-directional analog meter with a dual register digital one. I had
a certification from the analog meter manufacturer stating
Haha. That is funny about the billing software. A local co-op utility
handwrites an insert in each customer’s bill that shows the kWH returned to the
grid. How embarrassing…
Jason Szumlanski
Fafco Solar
From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org
Never heard of this and we have run every system we have
installed backwards thru the non-net meter to verify
operation and connection and no damage ever.
Dana Orzel
Great Solar Works, Inc
E - d...@solarwork.com
V - 970.626.5253
F - 970.626.4140
C - 970.209.4076
web - www.solarwork.com
Another issue is with our local mechanical meters is no
matter which way they run they are adding KWHR so to leave
it running you are costing your customer $ not saving them
$. We test to see that is does back feed for 5 minutes and
then turn it off till the net meter is installed.
Dana Orzel
Hello wrenches,
We have an opportunity to install a very large (60 kw) off grid system
in Mexico. It is currently three phase. I do have the option of
changing out the air conditioners (36 of them) to 120 single phase, but
it is an added layer of complexity/cost that it would be nice to avoid.
Darryl,
Exeltech makes 60 kW three-phase off-grid inverters.
Contact me off-list.
Dan
Sr. Engineer
Exeltech
--- On Fri, 8/12/11, penobscotso...@midmaine.com penobscotso...@midmaine.com
wrote:
From: penobscotso...@midmaine.com penobscotso...@midmaine.com
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Large, off
SMA Multi-Cluster Box, 3-phase up to 60kW using Sunny Islands
http://www.grosolar.com/documents/doc_details/294-smacluster-spec-sheet.html
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 8:42 AM, penobscotso...@midmaine.com wrote:
Hello wrenches,
We have an opportunity to install a very large (60 kw) off grid
Hi Daryl,
You might look at the new Outback 8kw 120/240v
I know that you can connect up to 10 in parallel, i don't know if you can do
it 3 phase however.
jay
peltz power
On Aug 12, 2011, at 8:42 AM, penobscotso...@midmaine.com wrote:
Hello wrenches,
We have an opportunity to
We too have had this happen - customer didn't feel he had to wait for
utility approval, turned on the system after we left.
His next bill came he tried to blame it on us...
All the meters the utilities are replacing here are electronic AMR style
units. It has been a long time since I saw a
Do you know of a source for (18) enhase M190's?
Thanks,
David Palumbo
Independent Power LLC
462 Solar Way Drive
Hyde Park, VT 05655
www.independentpowerllc.com
NABCEP Certified PV Installer
Vermont Solar Partner
23 Years Experience, (802) 888-7194
Same thing happened to me.
The new digital meters have two channels to measure and bill for power.
Standard meters read power flow through either channel as consumed
power, and will charge accordingly. That way, if a meter is turned over
by a customer (in an attempt to un-use some of the
Electronic meters always work in favor of the utility company. Mechanical
meters can be ratcheted 1-way or unratcheted bi-directional. Bi-directional
meters can be calibrated accurately. Meters are the utility's cash registers.
Businesses get very angry if you touch or even look closely at
There are really 3 kinds of meters in terms of running backwards and
billing.
1 True mechanical - these run and read forwards and backwards and are
not only safe to run backwards but they will inherently bill that way
too as there is not way for the utility to know whether they ran forward
There are really 3 kinds of meters in terms of running backwards and
billing.
1 True mechanical - these run and read forwards and backwards and are
not only safe to run backwards but they will inherently bill that way
too as there is not way for the utility to know whether they ran forward
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