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I had some questions on points raised in a sticky and its probably more appropriate and manageable to put it into a separate thread.
Mike, I hope you don't mind it done this way as it is very necessary for DIY guys to be properly informed and I am considering making inverters here in Australia so getting details can be difficult. Obviously it is very dificult for you to edit out the extraneous material so I thought to do that for you
(From a sticky that has strayed off topic a bit)
Tytower
Thats an interesting read thanks .
One question I did not follow in the last post " In addition the POCO will know of an illegal connection and can disconnect the customer. " I'm wondering how that could be the case as any power out usually goes to a transformer of some kind so how could they know?
Secondly the statement "Any excess you generate and send to your neighbors will be billed as energy used so you pay for the electricity you send the POCO to sell to your neighbors." is not clear to me . If what you produce goes out to the grid how would it come through your billing system?
solar_pete
Howdy, if your meter is an older one, it cant tell the difference between power originating from the grid or from solar panels it's all just power going through a meter and you will be billed for the power you produce and send to the grid. No getting around the fact that the rules are the rules and they are there for a good reason.
Mike
The PoCo has all sorts of computer tools to see what a customers usage has been and will be. When you deviate from it for more than a month, they flag your account for fraud, and the next time someone walks the meter route, they do a close inspection on the meter. If they see PV panels and no connection agreement, you are busted
SunEagle
If your meter is not configured for two way operation (purchase on incoming and sell on outgoing) then any power that goes through it will be considered as purchase. It will not subtract the outgoing. It will just add it to the incoming.
Also based on your past energy consumption you will have a different profile if you now generate your own power that will raise a flag at the POCO which will probably initiate a house call to see what is going on. Once they find you are now co-generating without a contract they will decide how the will penalize you up to disconnecting you until you rectify the issue.
Tytower
Yes I understand what you are saying but where is the power from your system injected? I can see that it could be injected house or line side of the meter but I would not expect it ever to be injected on the line side unless an export meter is also fitted separately.
Clearly a solar input not signed off on would reduce power useage and operate a flag in normal circumstances and lead to reprisals . My thoughts were well it mixes with the input supply from the line , thats what the inverter does , As such it then passes to a transformer somewhere down the line which then converts it to a much higher voltage anyway.
My interest here was that I don't see at present that the POCO's have any other method of picking up unapproved power injection . I wondered how long it would be before some sort of signal system is built in to the grid tie inverters that sends a coded signal or message to the POCO through all of their line network similar to say injecting a control signal to switch water heaters or lights on that is being used now?
I don't understand how but I have a separate water heater meter that is turned on at a different rate and I guess this must be done with a signal down the line somehow. One of those blinking red lights type mentioned previously
Mike
this is straying way off topic from a stickie and I'm going to purge the comments, since we don't have a way to send them to a new thread.
Sorry,
Sadly it looks like the whole link/thread is dead / 404 and may need to be removed.
Mike, I hope you don't mind it done this way as it is very necessary for DIY guys to be properly informed and I am considering making inverters here in Australia so getting details can be difficult. Obviously it is very dificult for you to edit out the extraneous material so I thought to do that for you
(From a sticky that has strayed off topic a bit)
Tytower
Thats an interesting read thanks .
One question I did not follow in the last post " In addition the POCO will know of an illegal connection and can disconnect the customer. " I'm wondering how that could be the case as any power out usually goes to a transformer of some kind so how could they know?
Secondly the statement "Any excess you generate and send to your neighbors will be billed as energy used so you pay for the electricity you send the POCO to sell to your neighbors." is not clear to me . If what you produce goes out to the grid how would it come through your billing system?
solar_pete
Howdy, if your meter is an older one, it cant tell the difference between power originating from the grid or from solar panels it's all just power going through a meter and you will be billed for the power you produce and send to the grid. No getting around the fact that the rules are the rules and they are there for a good reason.
Mike
The PoCo has all sorts of computer tools to see what a customers usage has been and will be. When you deviate from it for more than a month, they flag your account for fraud, and the next time someone walks the meter route, they do a close inspection on the meter. If they see PV panels and no connection agreement, you are busted
SunEagle
If your meter is not configured for two way operation (purchase on incoming and sell on outgoing) then any power that goes through it will be considered as purchase. It will not subtract the outgoing. It will just add it to the incoming.
Also based on your past energy consumption you will have a different profile if you now generate your own power that will raise a flag at the POCO which will probably initiate a house call to see what is going on. Once they find you are now co-generating without a contract they will decide how the will penalize you up to disconnecting you until you rectify the issue.
Tytower
Yes I understand what you are saying but where is the power from your system injected? I can see that it could be injected house or line side of the meter but I would not expect it ever to be injected on the line side unless an export meter is also fitted separately.
Clearly a solar input not signed off on would reduce power useage and operate a flag in normal circumstances and lead to reprisals . My thoughts were well it mixes with the input supply from the line , thats what the inverter does , As such it then passes to a transformer somewhere down the line which then converts it to a much higher voltage anyway.
My interest here was that I don't see at present that the POCO's have any other method of picking up unapproved power injection . I wondered how long it would be before some sort of signal system is built in to the grid tie inverters that sends a coded signal or message to the POCO through all of their line network similar to say injecting a control signal to switch water heaters or lights on that is being used now?
I don't understand how but I have a separate water heater meter that is turned on at a different rate and I guess this must be done with a signal down the line somehow. One of those blinking red lights type mentioned previously
Mike
this is straying way off topic from a stickie and I'm going to purge the comments, since we don't have a way to send them to a new thread.
Sorry,
Sadly it looks like the whole link/thread is dead / 404 and may need to be removed.
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