New Solar Rules

[The_Saints]

Connie, I highly recommend Ernie Mattos and his Mattos Electric 808-969-7982.

[Connie]

Thank you Saints! Merry Christmas to all!!!

Connie

[ericlp]

What we need, is a way to reliably wire the house, inexpensively ... To have two systems, the home in the middle on an island, and to be able to switch between grid and off grid at a glance...

Say, the system... will be 100% solar and when the weather gets crappy and cloudy, then the system will sense the change, and draw from batteries, but instead of powering on the generator it will switch to grid to charge up the batteries, as the solar panels continue to adjust with weather conditions. Then, the other scenario will be to switch from off grid to full on grid at night.

This would keep maintenance of the batteries down to a bare minimum, also, it would require less batteries in the bank, as there would be ALWAYS power to keep them charged. One wouldn't have to worry about abusing the batteries, as the entire system would be turned off at night (inverter, charge controller) and would be on 100% grid at night and certain weather conditions (Not just a typical cloud passing by).

A system like this, could allow reduced saving by half or more depending on how many panels were installed, without the fuss of figuring out how to get a huge battery bank and reduce the battery maintenance and buying batteries every 3-4 years. As not cycling the batteries would increase typical lead acid battery life to possible 20-30 years as long as they were in float mode 90% of time.

Tho, if you had Lithium type batteries, one could get away with ZERO maintenance, and very little space required to house them and of course, you wouldn't need a big expensive bank, so you one could have the best of both worlds at a reasonable cost.

One day, everyone will be on systems like this, and when helco starts finding huge drops in mass amounts of customer bills... They will figure out a way to charge even more, and possible even send someone over to rip out your illegally installed non permitted system. As we all know....... Helco is not for the people, but rather for profits to make the top 1% even more rich off the backs of energy consumption.

[Chas]

That is a GREAT idea ericlp. But you say it is illegal? Why is that?

[Tink]

He didn't state that it is illegal, only a non permitted system is illegal. The switchgear assembly would probably give an inspector fits, and might call it an "unrated assembly", but once you show him/her that all components are "approved and certified" they would most likely back down.

Community begins with Aloha

[kalakoa]

The switchgear assembly would probably give an inspector fits

Outback grid-tie systems can be configured to prioritize batteries over grid, eg "grid as last resort", no extra funky wiring required.

[MarkP]

This sounds like reinventing the wheel. There are already hybrid systems that allow you to do basically whatever you want. As to how and when you sell to or buy from HELCO that would be determined by your contract with HELCO. You can definitely put together a system that will only buy when your batteries get low but what's in it for HELCO? If I were providing a service and a customer wanted me to maintain a bunch of equipment so that I could save their sorry a** when they ran low but they insisted on gleefully telling me to go screw myself the majority of the time, I would either not accept them as a customer or I would make them pay through the nose for my putting up with them. In general the vilification of HELCO is silly.

[BigEyePuna]

[quote]Originally posted by ericlp

What we need, is a way to reliably wire the house, inexpensively ... To have two systems, the home in the middle on an island, and to be able to switch between grid and off grid at a glance...

I don't know how this would work in Hawaii (yet) but in my place in the Philippines I have my system set up this way. I just use a double throw/double pull switch to change between grid power and solar power. If the battery bank gets low I can just throw the switch to grid power (if it's not during a frequent brownout). Or at night if I want to keep my refrigerator and fans running on a hot night, I can do that. I can't charge my batteries with the grid power though.

[kalakoa]

double throw/double pull switch to change between grid power and solar power

This solution would work, and might even be "permittable", but it also requires manual intervention; an intelligent grid-tied system means not having to worry about state-of-charge.

Also consider that a (propane-fired) backup generator costs about as much as the SSPP fees, with an operating cost/KWh that's pretty close to grid power. Wire the auto-start circuit up to the charge controller... no HELCO bill, and an extra several KW "on tap" for the occasional need.

[Guest]

Cold turkey, totally off-grid is the only way to go. Centralized power only makes sense in dense cities.

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You can't fix Samsara.