To collect free energy from the sun, and lower my bills, I thought all I had to do was plug a solar panel into my apartment wall.
I was so wrong.
Doing so could put me at risk of having my electric services disconnected, the California Public Utilities Commission told me. That’s apparently true even though the panel I have could only generate enough power to charge my laptop if I’m lucky.
Laws allowing renters to plug cheap solar panels into a regular outlet at home are starting to catch-on across the country in at least 20 states tracked by Canary Media.
Supporters say renters should be able to access affordable solar and shave dollars off their energy bill with these systems. Opponents, including many investor-owned utilities, say these are energy systems they don’t control and could put electrical workers at risk by adding power to the grid during an outage that a utility can’t immediately detect.
However, Colorado just enshrined the right to get these into law this month. So has Utah and Maine. Virginia, Maryland and Connecticut are hot on their heels.
California? We’ll see. On Thursday, the state Senate Appropriations Committee will determine the fate of a plug-in solar bill by State Sen. Scott Wiener.
“Until SB 868 is signed into law … technically plug-in solar falls under Rule 21 which utilities enforce at their own discretion,” wrote Cora Stryker, cofounder of Bright Saver, a nonprofit organization formed last year to sell plug-in solar kits and help push legislation like this across the country.
Ok, before I get into Rule 21, let me set the scene: After writing about Wiener’s bill back in March, I wanted to test balcony solar at my own place and see how much I could shave off my energy bill. Bright Saver lent me a 180-watt panel, which is a much smaller system than what Wiener’s bill would allow (up to 1,200 watts – enough to power a window A/C unit).
But before I tested it, I wanted to know whether plugging in my panel (which needs just a regular outlet to send power back into the wiring of my apartment and toward appliances that need it – like the refrigerator or microwave) was technically illegal. I had heard that people in northern California were trying out balcony solar and were told to stand down by Pacific Gas and Electric, the investor-owned utility managing the grid there.
Wiener, during his bill’s hearing before the Senate Energy and Utilities Committee, said residents were being forced to apply for grid interconnection – a ridiculously long application process people with rooftop solar typically have their solar companies do for them.
So I emailed the California Public Utilities Commission and asked.
“Plug-in solar is subject to the requirements for interconnection under Rule 21, which ensures safety and reliability of the grid,” wrote Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the Public Utilities Commission.
Rule 21 regulates privately owned energy-generating resources like solar panels, batteries.
“It requires application to the utility, payment of appropriate fees, obtaining necessary permits from local jurisdictions, and waiting for the utility’s Permission to Operate before physically connecting for safety and reliability,” Prosper wrote.
Damn. I was afraid of that. Sounds like a really complicated and time-consuming process just to be able to, maybe, shave a few bucks off my energy bill.
But then I thought, what are they going to do if I don’t follow Rule 21? Throw me into Rule 21 jail?
Prosper said my utility company could disconnect my power.
“Connecting plug-in solar to the grid without the necessary permitting and Rule 21 application can result in a customer being disconnected for safety and/or code violations, in addition to any other actions by the local jurisdiction,” Prosper wrote.
That’s a pretty big risk.
I also asked San Diego Gas and Electric if they’d cut my power. Spokesman Anthony Wagner reiterated the systems fall under Rule 21.
“Unapproved connections can create dangerous backfeed conditions that put utility workers, first responders and the public at risk,” he wrote.
So, I didn’t plug in my panel. It’s still sitting in a huge box against my wall, mocking me.
We’ll see what Thursday brings. But if California doesn’t move plug-in solar forward this year, stay tuned for part two of my quest where I embark on what looks to be an incredibly and prohibitively complex process of applying for grid interconnection!
Around The Environment:
- Baja California wound up on Mexico’s list of dirtiest beaches due unsafe bacteria levels. (Voice of San Diego)
- In other dirty beach news, backers of a county sales tax measure couldn’t explain what the $80 million a year for fixes to the Tijuana River sewage crisis would be spent on, specifically. (Voice of San Diego)
- Two miles into the Pacific Ocean, west of Belmont Park’s Giant Dipper roller coaster, lies an underwater graveyard of sunken ships that now function as artificial reefs. (Times of San Diego)
- The California Supreme Court told the Coastal Commission it overstepped its authority blocking housing developments in San Luis Obispo County. (Voice of San Diego)
- Blue jellied “by-the-wind sailors” called velellas have been spotted on San Diego coastlines and as far north as San Francisco Bay. (Union-Tribune)
- MTS reported a 9 percent increase in bus ridership and a 5 percent increase in trolley ridership as gas prices surge past $6. (ABC 10)
- LAFCO’s governing board told its analysts to stop work on its top priority: auditing the San Diego County Water Authority. (Voice of San Diego)
- In other water news, Otay Water District’s leader said that the city of San Diego shouldn’t retain the same amount of power on the Water Authority’s board once it begins making recycled drinking water and buying less from the agency. (Voice of San Diego)
- San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s budget would eliminate a team of traffic engineers focused on redesigning streets to make them safer for bikes and pedestrians. (KPBS)
- Scientists are tracking two marine heat waves off the Pacific Coast. (KPBS)
This scenario is dripping with irony and duplicity. Some years ago, SDG&E (along with other for-profit utilities) fought to curtail the rate structure that made installing rooftop solar economical. Why? They claimed (and still do) that this unfairly shifted cost of maintaining the grid to people who either don’t own homes or can’t come up with the up-front money to install rooftop solar. (The real reason is that SDG&E makes money by building generating capacity and rooftop solar reduces the need for that. Just look at the enormous cost of the Sunrise Powerlink which … transfers power from solar panels in the desert to San Diego.) Now there is a way that those people they argued were disadvantaged by rooftop solar to generate their own solar energy and they want to stop that. Why? Same reason they wanted to curtail rooftop solar. The emperor has no clothes. It was all a false argument to preserve SDG&E’s monopoly on profiting from generating energy. They didn’t really care at all about the people who had no place to install solar (but who do now).
Of course you’re going to pay to back feed into the grid which adds to the expense of the system. 1200 watt systems are 4-6 panels around $1500. And then add a battery for another $750-1000? To shave a few bucks off you think?
Germany is a global leader in plug-in solar (‘balcony solar’). Basic systems with 1kWp solar and capability of feeding 800W into your residence’s ‘grid’ start at ~$400.
A system with 2kWp solar and 2.7kWh battery storage are ~$1400.
But they don’t pay Trump tariffs and have healthy competition.
Systems are designed to follow grid availability, if the grid goes down the inverters shut off and do not feed any more energy into the grid.
Trumps tariffs were struck down by the courts. Germany is very protective of its industries and has heavy tariffs on a variety of products entering the country.
I think your figures on the panels and batteries are about a third of their actual cost.
To the author, if all you want to do is charge your laptop, you should be able to splice a compatible plug to the panels output cables. Conveniently, most panels’ output is 19-21v DC, which is almost exactly what the majority of laptops require from their brick chargers. Because of inefficiencies, your 180w panel actually puts out around 140 watts on the sunniest days. Giving you around 7 amps current which is about double what the average laptop consumes (you can hook up a 7amp power brick to a laptop which will only draw what it uses. However the same 7amps @ 20v from a solar panel will insist on going somewhere and likely melt down your laptop) so youll need some power regulation in there somewhere (possibly in the form of a storage battery and charge controller( but if that was your intent you really dont want to grid tie. Its that inefficiencies thing I mentioned. Converting the 21vdc panel output to 120vac that your apartment is wired with, then plugging in your power brick to convert 120vac back to 19vdc the computer wants, is wasteful because the components involved generate heat and that takes energy. There is simpler purpose designed equipment to accomplish this that you dont have to be an electrical engineer to make work.
Moreover, its rather dangerous for people to take on engineering their own solar setups in the home. A loose connection on one of your panels for instance can create a high resistance spot which will heat up and catch fire. Panels in the sun have constant power output even when youre not around to see them catch fire. (Solar system techs typically use a thermal cam to detect hot spots, or areas of high resistance that could cause a fire)
Theres a website called diysolar dot com, its a great resource for those wishing to play mad scientist with solar technology. Dont miss the message board with the accidents and disasters posts, youll see the many stories and images of people who barely escaped from their homes or RVs with their lives when their handiwork wasnt quite up to snuff.