States/Cities Attempting To Limit You Self Produced Power...

[EastTexCowboy]

I know that down south, Toronto has EU fire ants, not sure if that is the same type you guy get,
I hear they sting you and leave a huge red mark!
In the NW we just get snow every couple weeks and that keeps these pests away.
Keeps a lot of people away too come to think of it...

Sounds like the same symptoms. I didn't realize there were any of those that far north. Learn something every day.

 

[EastTexCowboy]

Sweater weather!
Yeah, but I gotta tell ya, Saskatchewan is the one of those places that can be super cold (-50) OR super hot 40C/104F I bet it has some of the widest ranges of temperatures on the whole damn globe!
I worked seven years in the Canadian Arctic, (I mean the read deal, along the arctic coastline), I had two local apprentices and they told me if it gets up to 15C (60F) then we have to stop working cause that is too hot to work at that temperature!
LOL - In the middle of January we saw some -60 so I guess it is all what your used to!
We had rain here today, no snow, overcast 12C (54F) Canadian-sweater weather, my grandkids running around in tee shirts and shorts.

My stepson used to come visit at Christmas and wear tshirts and shorts in the 50s while we wore coats. Then he moved to Galveston. Now he gets cold if it's below 75.

 

[OffGridForGood]

It was in the news a few years back just in areas around Toronto and likely came in from the EU with shipping crates or such. They seem to be spreading out from some starting point north of the city.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Google says there are many types of Fire Ants, but the ones in Toronto are from the EU, they indicate the ones in the southern US are mostly from S. America. Seem to be similar though.
Tell ya what, you guys just keep those love-bugs and Fire Ants, and we will keep our horse flies and black flies. deal?

 

[EastTexCowboy]

Google says there are many types of Fire Ants, but the ones in Toronto are from the EU, they indicate the ones in the southern US are mostly from S. America. Seem to be similar though.
Tell ya what, you guys just keep those love-bugs and Fire Ants, and we will keep our horse flies and black flies. deal?

Then you're falling behind because we have plenty horse flies and black flies. I think you're safe on the love bugs. Fire ants - all bets are off.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Not sure, since that heat wave back in 2021 (Portland was hotter than Miami and Lytton BC was hotter than Los Vegas NV!), I don't want to rely on too much!
Fire Ants, seem like a hell-of-pest not sure how we would deal with those. Love-bugs seem to be a Florida - Texas thing, with no signs of those moving northward at least not in any searches I did!
Hey maybe one day soon I will list Mitsubishi mini splits in my signature too!

 

[LittleLebowski]

They just went through all the towns in my county in upstate NY. My assessment went up 27%, and that's after just being assessed at double the previous amount from when we bought the property 5 years ago.

NY, you say.

 

[NPhil]

I am poking fun at the idea we may actually need to hide our solar in the first place, it is so rediculous, and yet here we are discussing rules/laws/regulations that could in fact lead to 'the man' scouring the countryside with satelites to identify rouge solar operations and shut them down. I mean, really?
I am pretty sure, this is anti-freedom, and although may be disguised as 'for the good of' 'for safety' or 'to be fair to others' - I don't buy it.
We have all seen the video of the LiFePO4 cell that smokes out the guys' garage, but never catches fire. - seems pretty safe to me, and glad I put my batteries in a separate metal building, - the point - the batteries do not seem to be much of a hazard. PV, rapid shut down, Arc fault shut downs, class-T fuses okay we have a lot of built in safey going on here. I think my welding and Oxy-Act set ups are about 1,000,000x more of a hazard then my solar; but no one says I can't weld, or cut steel.
The percentage of homes completely off grid in Canada/USA is very low, maybe 0.05% and the number of homes with both solar and utility, and using both is considerably more, but no where near where Australia is, or parts of the EU, it will take decades to catch up to them at the rate we are going. Are they putting a fix to a problem that doesn't exist? Are PUC/corporate utilitiy providers flexing their control, taking advantage, looking for an easy buck, putting rules in place to slow the growth of home solar, - you decide.

Should you have the right to collect the sunshine that hits your property - I say yes.
Should you have the right to recklessly endanger your neighbour - I say no.
Should you have the right to tell the utility - whether public or private - "no thanks I don't need your service" - I say yes.
If many many homes tell the utility 'no thanks' does this automatically mean we "Owe them" for their failed investment - I say no.
We started this thread with the idea the State or local gov would/could limit your production:
Should the local utility - whether public or private - be forced to buy all my/our excess production - I say no.
They should be able to limit inputs, and controll the overall system, sure, but not 'tax' how many PV panels are installed on my/our properties, not limit our own production for our own uses, that is none of their concern as long as we are responsible, ie not endangering our neighbours.
Rant over, please return to your regularly scheduled postings.

I say use lasers for solar panel array camouflage. Make a hologram of some (bucolic country, maybe) scene which sort of matches the surroundings. Never get the video feed to the camouflage hologram swapped with a map of your MMORPG battle map.

 

[OffGridForGood]

MMORPG

ok had to look that one up. LOL

 

[NPhil]

I think I've looked at every comment here without seeing mention of what I have read are the real technical problems of supporting large numbers of grid-connected solar systems, without sufficient income. What I think happened is that (without getting into political attacks) incentives for grid-connected solar were handed out like candy, without regard for the problem of maintaining, and upgrading, the grid for a much more complex distribution of generation. More or less anyone I hear from seems to assume that the grid will just be there, because it has been there. One reason I'm working on a mobile solar power testbed is that the current track seems certain, if it is not reversed, to result in crumbling grid, causing many unhappy consequences, and a lot of finger pointing, by people who are in positions of power because they are good at finger pointing, and not much else (sorry, politics, I'll stop), but no workable plan will actually turn things around, perhaps for some time.

 

[NPhil]

ok had to look that one up. LOL

Me too!

 

[OffGridForGood]

I think the number of people inputting solar PV anywhere in N.America is so small it has nearly zero effect on the current grid, like a flea landing on the back of an elephant. Correct me (with real data) if you have it, but all I can find shows the solar PV from home based solar is tiny. The main PV inputs are solar farms, and that is another whole matter. I think they have good self-interest reasons to make us believe they are suffering some problem due to solar PV inputs, personnally I don't buy it, and don't see any real data that supports the claims.
If the grid 'being there' is an issue, I don't see that either, 0.05% of Canadian/Americans are 100% off grid, a larger but again tiny percentage are using both solar and grid, most homes are just using grid.
Years of neglect to the power grid - deferring costs - have been very profitable, getting the pubilc to pay for upgrades now "because of solar" would be even more profitable.

 

[Ampster]

More or less anyone I hear from seems to assume that the grid will just be there, because it has been there.

I think the grid will be there but it will be inadequate for todays distributed generation. Currently all the controls and switching gear is unidirectional because it was built and designed for electrical flow from centralized generators. Now the grid controls and switches need to be designed for bidirectional flow. Fortunately the transformers in the field are biidirectional but most of the substation equipment needs to be updated.

 

[Ampster]

I think the number of people inputting solar PV anywhere in N.America is so small it has nearly zero effect on the current grid,

That may be true for North America, but Hawaii has experience serious backfeed of energy and the grid is not designed to handle that. The growth of distributed energy resources is not confined to rooftop solar. In my County we have several large solar farms and a soon to be constructed large battery storage facility capable of several megaWatts.

 

[OffGridForGood]

I think the grid will be there but it will be inadequate for todays distributed generation. Currently all the controls and switching gear is unidirectional because it was built and designed for electrical flow from centralized generators. Now the grid controls and switches need to be designed for bidirectional flow. Fortunately the transformers in the field are biidirectional but most of the substation equipment needs to be updated.

Yet, we see Australia with 70% of the homes PV grid tied, and no issues? I wonder if we are making assumptions that are not really concerns - at least not at the level of home PV we see so far today.

 

[OffGridForGood]

distributed energy resources is not confined to rooftop solar. In my County we have several large solar farms and a soon to be constructed large battery storage facility capable of several megaWatts.

We see large solar farms and clearly these are commercial enterprises that are carefully planned for, and controlled to work with the grid.
The large battery storage facility may be the 'solution' to the increasing distributed solar inputs, giving that new energy source somewhere to go, until night, when the local area needs power but the sun has set.

 

[cs1234]

Seems to me all they really need is zero export ct's or export controls on grid tied inverters. All this taxation and bill padding nonsense needs to stop.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

ok had to look that one up. LOL

Ok I’m old but still played EverQuest..

 

[EastTexCowboy]

I'll add to this that it seems a little crazy for the feds and some of the states to be pushing solar with serious incentives (with our tax dollars but it's good to get some of those back) while the POCOs and municipalities, and other states, are fighting it every step of the way. Of course they parrot the lines about supporting solar but many of us have dealt with their real agenda. Then there's the whole push to EVs when the grid will barely support the existing load and the technology isn't mature enough to meet expectations. They don't even want to talk about how to deal with all the negatives of having a few million EVs added to the fleet, dealing with disposal, or the fact that when you look at the environmental impact of mining and refining raw materials for solar and/or EVs it negates a big chunk of the "green" benefits. Too many conflicting agendas and too many powerful public and private entities with their fingers in the pie. Throw in a big ole bucket of politics and its quite the mess.

Which is why I suggest we do as much as we can in the way of DIY solar while we still can. I'd like to think we can fight the push to regulate out most of the DIY and off-grid production, but I just don't know if we'll ever have the numbers to do so. I hope I'm wrong and DIY solar is around and thriving for a long, long time.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Seems to me all they really need is zero export ct's or export controls on grid tied inverters. All this taxation and bill padding nonsense needs to stop.

When I looked into what Australia is doing, where they have far more home PV attached to the grid, the answer was exactly as your suggesting, a limit on export. In some cases 10kWh/day and other cases more or less than that target depending on the situation: how much solar/other damands on the local area grid it appears.
I suspect there is no issue at all in our (N.American) case to this point (someone pointed out Hawaii, okay that is a special isolated case, sure) for the bulk of N.America though, the residential PV inputs are tiny compared to the demands and the chatter and demands for money are nothing to do with fixing a problem, they are just looking for your money. It is pretty clear the overall electical grid infrastructure has been left somewhat or entirely neglected for a considerable length of time, now in need of huge investment. How "nice" would it be if the public paid that for the utility companies, all we have to do is convince them the need comes from solar PV, and EV's instead of 30-years of kicking the infrastructure costs down the road.

 

[JJJJ]

Hmmm. Aging infrastructure. Talk of increasing costs. Plans for increased demand for non peak hours.

Nothing to see here. Its going to be fine.

 

[Q-Dog]

The thing that really pisses me off the most about my local power companies is their reaction to huge disasters. We get hurricanes every couple of years that destroy lots of the power infrastructure. Swarms of trucks and crews from around the country show up to rebuild it all. They work around the clock (I imagine the overtime $$$ must be huge?) to get the power back on. But they rebuild it all exactly the same, and the next storm takes it all down again. Then they tell us it would be too expensive to harden the grid. "Oh by the way, we need more money to pay for the repairs so we are adding another $8 "hurricane charge" to your bill." It is pure insanity, and the grid still is no better than it was before the storms.

 

[wattmatters]

Yet, we see Australia with 70% of the homes PV grid tied, and no issues?

One in three homes have grid-tied solar PV. It's still growing strongly each year but I think 60-70% will be about the upper limit as not all homes have suitable rooftops, rentals etc where it may not be suitable, economic etc. Plus apartments etc.

The other trend is the older smaller PV systems are being upgraded with larger ones. Average PV system size being installed today is 8 kW.

It's a challenge but our grid operators are working on ways to enable it with requirements such as the current fixed export limits and over time the introduction of dynamic export limits (the smart way of doing it). The distributors have lagged a bit and are playing catch up with such innovation to integrate more rooftop solar PV but I think we'll do OK.

I think the grid is an amazing invention and benefits society in so many ways. It makes sense to protect and nurture it but as is the way in many places, vested interests seek to leverage it for their personal gain at the expense of the people and communities it was designed to serve.

There is some of that here but I don't see it being quite as bad as many of you in the US are relating here. Partly because we still have a chunk of govt ownership of the system in many parts, plus the companies which are privately owned/operated are heavily regulated. The grid is an essential service and needs to be managed accordingly.

The privatisation of public assets was a big theme of governments here in the 1990s and 2000s. In the energy sector it was supposed to usher in a more efficient system, increased competition and lower prices. It did none of the above. This is not opinion, it's been reviewed and studied in detail. In the end it was just a transfer of wealth from the public to a few private operators and we are all the poorer for it. Worse, it has meant the transition in our energy sector is going to be far more difficult than it needed to be.

 

[NPhil]

I think the number of people inputting solar PV anywhere in N.America is so small it has nearly zero effect on the current grid, like a flea landing on the back of an elephant. Correct me (with real data) if you have it, but all I can find shows the solar PV from home based solar is tiny. The main PV inputs are solar farms, and that is another whole matter. I think they have good self-interest reasons to make us believe they are suffering some problem due to solar PV inputs, personnally I don't buy it, and don't see any real data that supports the claims.
If the grid 'being there' is an issue, I don't see that either, 0.05% of Canadian/Americans are 100% off grid, a larger but again tiny percentage are using both solar and grid, most homes are just using grid.
Years of neglect to the power grid - deferring costs - have been very profitable, getting the pubilc to pay for upgrades now "because of solar" would be even more profitable.

Probably, to understand my point, you need to be able, and willing, to understand that the normal behavior of complex systems with interactions which are not fully understood, even by the designers, is collapse. The reason we are accustomed to the power grids not doing that, and feel surprised when they do, is that large organizations of people with specialized knowledge and experience adjust them, in real time, to prevent it. Of course you could argue, as Karl Marx did, that those organizations exist because of greed, and that I haven't "proved" to anyone who starts with different assumptions that there is a real risk complex systems failing when perturbed, but I do think I have good reason to assume that you have missed my point.

 

[NPhil]

Yet, we see Australia with 70% of the homes PV grid tied, and no issues? I wonder if we are making assumptions that are not really concerns - at least not at the level of home PV we see so far today.

There are always "no issues" until there are.