Ray Byers Jr. & Eric Stikes of Byers Solar explain how solar works if the power goes out.
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RAY BYERS JR.: I have a solar system, power goes down in
the in the middle of the day in the summer time, for whatever reason they’re
doing maintenance, taking trees down, and
the power gets shut down, do I still have power at my house?
ERIC STIKES: That depends on what type of system that you have.
So that question is a little bit involved.
Typically the answer is no. And it’s a safety issue.
We don’t want to have the solar sending electricity back on to what are considered deadlines.
So the utility knows the power has gone down and this neighborhood no longer has power.
But the one person in the neighborhood, for example, might have solar.
They’re pushing power back on the lines and then someone gets injured.
Now that’s happened in the past unfortunately.
So this solar cannot be producing, cannot be sending, power back onto lines that are dead.
RAY BYERS JR.: What do i need to do is a homeowner to make sure that power is not being sent
back to the grid when the power does go down?
And I am producing power in my solar system?
ERIC STIKES: As a homeowner you need to find a reputable installer.
A license contractor.
And they will make sure that the power, that they’re a hundred percent code compliant.
And that means in addition to all the other safety issues that means they’re ensuring that
they’re code compliant and they’re not sending any power back, that your system isn’t sending
power back to the grid.
RAY BYERS JR.: So then does that happen at the time of installation or do they have to come out?
I have to call up say “hey you need to come out and there’s no power in the neighborhood.
I need you to fix it.”
Or is that something we were able to build in on the front end when we install the solar system?
ERIC STIKES: Yeah actually us as installers and homeowners we really don’t need to worry about that.
As installers, if we install according to the manufacturer’s specifications that safety is built into system.
So we don’t need to come out and install an automatic transfer.
We don’t need to come out shut the system down.
The homeowner doesn’t need to worry about it.
It’s all integrated into the system.
RAY BYERS JR.: Some manufacturers call it remote islanding where they’ll take and
utilize all of that power that’s being generated and not basically turn the
switch over to PG&E or your power utility at that point they pretty much dead switch that.
ERIC STIKES: Safety is anti islanding.
The language is islanding because there’s a system that you can create.
It’s an off-grid solar system that essentially creates a power island.
So when the grid goes down you can have power independent of the grid.
But that’s a little bit involved.
It does require backup power supply typically a battery bank.
And it also requires it that shut off system is in place.
So that the battery is producing, your home still has power, the utility is down, and you’re not sending power back
to the grid.
BQ-E5e
Post time: Jun-19-2017