Due to FPL Lobbying, Florida residents have to power down solar panels when the power goes out. - Sensationalist Headlines

The Real story is buried in this article, which is why im not going with the original article title. [url]http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-frustrated-with-fpl-after-hurricane-irma-9666311[/url] [QUOTE]FPL and its parent company, NextEra Energy, have for years heavily influenced state and local politics through donations, making billions in profits each year ($1.7 billion alone in 2016) thanks to favorable state laws that are sometimes literally written by the power company's own lobbyists. FPL's lobbying wing has fought hard against letting Floridians power their own homes with solar panels. Thanks to power-company rules, it's impossible across Florida to simply buy a solar panel and power your individual home with it. You are instead legally mandated to connect your panels to your local electric grid. More egregious, FPL mandates that if the power goes out, your solar-power system must power down along with the rest of the grid, robbing potentially needy people of power during major outages. "Renewable generator systems connected to the grid without batteries are not a standby power source during an FPL outage," the company's solar-connection rules state. "The system must shut down when FPL's grid shuts down in order to prevent dangerous back feed on FPL's grid. This is required to protect FPL employees who may be working on the grid." Astoundingly, state rules also mandate that solar customers include a switch that cleanly disconnects their panels from FPL's system while keeping the rest of a home's power lines connected. But during a disaster like the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, FPL customers aren't allowed to simply flip that switch and keep their panels going. (But FPL is, however, allowed to disconnect your panels from the grid without warning you. The company can even put a padlock on it.) The law winds up forcing residents to remain reliant on the state's private power companies. For now, solar-panel owners can still get something out of the law, in that the "net-metering" provision lets you sell excess power back to the company. The provision also lets power companies charge a $400 or $1,000 application fee for consumers who want to install systems more powerful than 10 kilowatts. But if power companies had their way, the net-metering law would vanish tomorrow. Both FPL and its trade association, the Edison Electric Institute, have spent millions trying to kill that net-metering law and instead win the right to charge you for installing your own solar-panel system. In 2016, FPL spent more than $8 million on Amendment 1, a ballot initiative that industry insiders admitted was written to trick customers into giving up their rights to solar power. The law's language would have paved the way for Florida to kill net-metering rules. This past April, the Energy and Policy Institute caught an FPL lobbyist straight-up drafting anti-solar laws for Fort Myers state Rep. Ray Rodrigues, who also took a $15,000 campaign contribution from FPL this year. Thanks to power-company influence, one of America's sunniest states lags far behind the rest of the nation when it comes to solar adoption.[/QUOTE]

It's straight up Miami Noire. You have a bunch of dicks who rig the system by literally writing the laws, then put in a (cheap) replaceable power network with almost no protections, inside of a highly vulnerable area in regards to weather. Then when the weather goes bad and your system is forced to shut off, you then cut off peoples personal solar power supply. There's some dudes right now getting paid to basically fuck over the people of Miami, and they're writing the book on why they're allowed to do it as it happens. [quote]Instead of funneling money toward those extremely basic fixes, FPL has instead forced the public to pay for massive fossil-fuel and nuclear-energy plant upgrades.[/quote] The "end game", so to speak, is pretty obvious. But no really, the problem I actually have with this is the fact that lobbying is still a thing, you'd think we'd learn our lesson by now.

Literally pants on head retarded

Hopefully people disobey this and tell lawmakers to shove it, along with the cunts holding their strings.

Meanwhile, we here are being sold solar panels by our energy providers. Wow.

Just last year they tried to get an amendment to hurt solar power out that was disguised as pro solar power legislation. I remember I could tell that something was up because all of the people around campus trying to get people to sign petitions to get it on the ballot were older guys who looked like they were being paid to be there. Sure enough, come time to vote it became apparent that the real aim was to attack people's ability to run their own solar.

This sounds like the setup of a made-for-TV movie in which one brave soccermom stands up to the big bad company somehow.

[QUOTE=Karmah;52690635]Literally pants on head retarded[/QUOTE] I don't think there's a way to realistically explain how fucking dumb this is.

It's pretty common place for solar systems to shut down when they aren't attached to a battery storage. There's a few inverters capable of putting power out off grid but they are pretty rare afaik, battery systems like the Powerwall simply fool grid tied inverters into thinking the grid is still active after a relay physically disconnects the house from the grid. Though it it is pretty silly to prevent use of those inverters capable of being off-grid.

how can you even enforce this

[QUOTE=Lollipoopdeck;52690897]how can you even enforce this[/QUOTE]Pretty much this line [quote]Thanks to power-company rules, it's impossible across Florida to simply buy a solar panel and power your individual home with it. You are instead legally mandated to connect your panels to your local electric grid.[/quote]

From what I'm aware, this isn't as clear cut as the title; off-grid systems are capable of pushing a fair amount of juice [I]back into[/I] the grid during normal operation, and as such they are designed to fully disconnect if there's a power cut to protect engineers who may end up working on neighbourhood power lines, thinking that they're isolated, from getting turned into overdone marshmallows (the so-called "back feed" mentioned in the article). There's inverters that can fully isolate themselves (and the rest of the house) from the grid until line voltage returns (so-called "off-grid" inverters), but I believe they're [url=http://webosolar.com/store/en/battery-backup-dual-inverters/1213-sma-sunny-island-si6048-us-10-5750w-inverter.html]significantly more expensive[/url]. I also believe there's a reason to do with phase resynchronisation when the power comes back on (which may go part of the way to explaining why it [I]has[/I] to be connected to the grid), but I'm not entirely sure on that one. It's still a really dumb rule regardless, there should definitely be an exemption for off-grid systems.

How is this fucking legal? Someone file a class action lawsuit already.

Power companies are evil. Here in South Carolina, SCE&G received benefits worth billions of dollars for a nuclear power plant. They canceled plans for the plant with no repercussions (so far).

gee i sure love capitalism huh this really is textbook evil, why aren't people saying "this isn't ok, can we not do this please?"

didn't that DOE power review basically explicitly state solar and wind make the grid more resilient after natural disasters by powering local areas?

So the only evidence for enforcement is a mandate that requires you to connect to the grid and turn off during a blackout. How would they enforce this on third party systems? Have a cop come by and write you up if your breaker isn't connected to the grid? Corporate capitalism at its finest.

Next up, whenever there's a drought you have to pour any bottled water you have down the drain. It's just fair that way.

class action lawsuit from all the hurricane, tornado and other disaster victims ... make the ruling federal-wide with so huge fine nobody will ever try such backstab tactic again questions does this means those small solar panels for your mobile devices and camping need to be connected too ? or is there "tricky" smart-minimal limit ? does the law allow 'dead electricity grid' switch where it flips from 'connected from network' to 'not-connected' ? (or it's explicit you can't use it when the system is down, which is insane considering batteries can hold only so much)

[QUOTE=Morgen;52690809]It's pretty common place for solar systems to shut down when they aren't attached to a battery storage. There's a few inverters capable of putting power out off grid but they are pretty rare afaik, battery systems like the Powerwall simply fool grid tied inverters into thinking the grid is still active after a relay physically disconnects the house from the grid. Though it it is pretty silly to prevent use of those inverters capable of being off-grid.[/QUOTE] Yeah I was looking into this for my planned system. Inverter's that can function off grid without battery backups are stupid expensive. The phase synchronization issue only makes things even more complicated.

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;52691317]Yeah I was looking into this for my planned system. Inverter's that can function off grid without battery backups are stupid expensive. The phase synchronization issue only makes things even more complicated.[/QUOTE] Mainly because such inverters have to be true sine wave inverters instead of modified sine wave. The former requiring a hell of alot more electronics vs the later being easier to implement but would trip some breakers at a local substation if connected to the grid.

"You are legally required to connect your panels to the grid" "You are not allowed to run your panels while the power is out because they are connected to the grid and that is dangerous" ???

Yeah FPL is cancer. They are one of the most godawful entities in the state and they're a straight up monopoly and use their power to leverage politicians in Florida.

[QUOTE=GordonZombie;52690650]Hopefully people disobey this and tell lawmakers to shove it, along with the cunts holding their strings.[/QUOTE] Mass disobedience on this scale, in a way that doesn't harm anyone, would probably be VERY hard to combat. You can't really justify sending cops to break down the doors of someone who's got a perfectly legal solar panel installed. Especially not to thousands of perfectly decent law-abiding citizens.

[QUOTE=phygon;52691433]"You are legally required to connect your panels to the grid" "You are not allowed to run your panels while the power is out because they are connected to the grid and that is dangerous" ???[/QUOTE] Working As Intended™

Meanwhile, I have gulf power, and have nothing but good things to say about them. Even with everyone using their AC, they never go out. After Ivan they were out 24/7 working everyone to the bone to get power restored. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think the panels have to be connected to the grid, but you do get credit back if you do and provide excess energy

Imagine being told during a food shortage that as a farmer you can't eat any of the food you produce

[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;52691324]Mainly because such inverters have to be true sine wave inverters instead of modified sine wave. The former requiring a hell of alot more electronics vs the later being easier to implement but would trip some breakers at a local substation if connected to the grid.[/QUOTE] Actually, true sine wave inverters aren't that expensive anymore. Ones that can properly run off grid need to be able to dynamically adjust load based on need, and that causes all sorts of engineering and logistical problems. Batteries tremendously streamline things (on top of letting yourun devices at night).

[QUOTE=phygon;52691433]"You are legally required to connect your panels to the grid" "You are not allowed to run your panels while the power is out because they are connected to the grid and that is dangerous" ???[/QUOTE] time to invent a switch that disconnects your line from the grid if the incoming power blips solar power connected to the grid, when the grid is active, is actually pretty beneficial as it currently works; if you put excess power back into the grid, your electric meter ticks backwards and you offset your costs or even earn a credit with your company. knowing how hard these guys are working to corral customers into dependency though I wouldn't be surprised if we see (or they've already implemented) meters that don't account for feedback

[QUOTE=potatospirit;52691005]Power companies are evil. Here in South Carolina, SCE&G received benefits worth billions of dollars for a nuclear power plant. They canceled plans for the plant with no repercussions (so far).[/QUOTE] It's hard to continue building 2 nuclear reactors when the financial backers pull out leaving you high and dry. They didn't stop because they wanted to, but because they couldn't afford to continue. You can't force people to give you parts to a reactor or to work for you for free.