However, if customers have installed a battery system, such as a Tesla Powerwall or an SMA Sunny Island, they can use their solar panels safely during a grid failure. The reason many homeowners don't have the additional equipment necessary to allow them to keep their power on when the grid is down is because of the purchasing cost, said Mark Bubriski, director of public affairs for FPL. What’s happening is, they're taking something that was designed as a safety feature and they're trying to make it look like the utilities are the bad guys when they're just trying to keep their employees safe. When the grid goes down, a transfer switch switches me off the grid and into the battery system, so there's no way I could back-feed and hurt a utility linesman. The other scenario is, at my office, I have a solar system that's called a battery-interactive system. So there’s a current that, if it’s not being used by my home, could back-feed down the utility line for a long ways and be potentially life threatening. Electricity is like water - it takes the path of least resistance. I'd be back-feeding up to 600 volts to the utility lines, and a linesman could get killed.
The reason for that is simply common sense and safety. In my home, I have a grid-type solar system, meaning when the grid shuts down my solar shuts off. To illustrate this, he gave us two scenarios: Altier told us that Floridians who have solar panels on their homes can use energy from the sun during a grid failure - if they purchase additional equipment to prevent volts of electricity from traveling through power lines and harming unsuspecting neighbors or repair crews. We asked Patrick Altier, owner of the Florida-based energy company Solar Trek, to explain further. This is required to protect FPL employees who may be working on the grid. The system must shut down when FPL's grid shuts down in order to prevent dangerous back feed on FPL's grid.
Connectivity for power utility grids generator#
Renewable generator systems connected to the grid without batteries are not a standby power source during an FPL outage. The "mandate" cited by the New Times is in fact a guideline which reflects this standard and includes an important caveat. This is a safety precaution and industry-wide standard put in place to prevent line workers from being electrocuted while restoring power during an outage - and it is not unique to Florida.
Connectivity for power utility grids Offline#
Florida statute actually makes it unlawful for any entity block residents from having solar panels.įurther, FPL doesn't "mandate" that solar panels power down if the grid goes offline in a crisis. Utility providers are instead required to allow customers to connect their solar panels to the grid for " net metering," meaning they can enjoy lower utility bills if their homes generate more power than they use, because excess power is sold back to the utility company. 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.Īlthough the "big corporate government/axis of evil" narrative was too juicy for many conspiracy sites to pass up, Floridians are not, in fact, mandated by law to connect solar panels to the power grid. You are instead legally mandated to connect your panels to your local electric grid. Thanks to power-company rules, it's impossible across Florida to simply buy a solar panel and power your individual home with it. The New Times reported:įPL's lobbying wing has fought hard against letting Floridians power their own homes with solar panels. In a 14 September 2017 article, the New Times reported that thanks to lobbying, the utilities company Florida Power & Light (FPL) had so much undue leverage over when and whether customers could make use of solar panels that they were able to prevent solar users from accessing sun-based electricity in Irma's aftermath. Shortly after the powerful storm hit, the alternative weekly newspaper Miami New Times offered an explanation as to why those with solar panels, who seemingly should be unaffected by a utility grid failure so long as there is sunlight, were also, quite literally, in the dark.
In the days immediately following Hurricane Irma making landfall in Florida in early September 2017, many Floridians lost electrical power - including those with solar panels.
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