[asa] Electric grid

Just for the record, the following is an exchange of emails between me
and a friend in Rico, Colorado, who generates his electric from solar
panels.

Me:

> I've been dialoging with some colleagues on the net -- he
made this > statement about electric systems such as yours:
>
> ""And to top it all off. If you want to sell electricity back to the grid,
> it is the law that if the grid goes down, your equipment has to have
> automatic shut off switches. This means that when you really really need
> the power, you don't have it. Why is this? Well if your > equipment continued to work when the rest of the grid was down, you could > electrocute the workers fixing the problem."

My friend:

MY INVERTER HAS AN AUTOMATIC SHUTOFF SWITCH SO IF THE GRID
GOES DOWN IT STOPS PUTTING POWER OUT ON THE GRID AND
SWITCHED AUTOMATICALLY TO MY BATTERY BANK. ALSO IF THE
LINEMEN NEED TO WORK ON THE LINES THEY CAN SHUT OFF THE
HOUSE CONNECTION AT THE BOX OUTSIDE AND LOCK IT TIL THEY'RE
DONE. IF YOUR SYSTEM IS JUST A SELL BACK WITHOUT BATTERIES
THEN IT'S TRUE THAT IF THE GRID GOES DOWN YOU STILL DON'T
HAVE ELECTRICITY.

Me:

I add that my friend built his "green" house about 8 or so years ago
and he reports that it works very well. It can be seen from the road
(Rt 145) just south of Rico on the east side.It is built into the side
of the mountain with large windows and solar panels facing south.

Burgy

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Received on Sat Jun 14 11:07:44 2008