Solar Panel Laws?

[bart2278]

Could I build a solar panel...farm...to power my house, and be completely free from the power company? Or do I have to hook up to the power company?

 

[wrnyhuise]

you don;t have to hook up but i have heard of people staying hooked into the grid and only paying for what they use and being paid for what they supply to the grid.

 

[shibumiseeker]

Unless you have a local ordinance or covenant, there is no state or federal law requiring you to be hooked to the grid. I have been off grid for two decades now and my solar panels are merrily powering my house right now.

 

[Spudgunr]

What you have to be careful of is powering your house WHILE hooked into the grid. If the power lines go down your house would be powering everybody and electrocuting linemen. If you have your house disconnected from the grid (or use separate circuits, or transfer switch, etc) then no problem as far as I know. I don't believe I have heard of anything like we have with water and sewer, but those are generally local ordinances too. Even so, I have never heard of a local one for POWER because those utilities are already established. When they bring in new water and sewer lines they have to get enough people using it to pay for it, so they'll make a local ordinance that you must tie in (what a load of crap, pun intended, that they can bring something in you don't want or need and make you spend 10 grand hooking in to it)

 

[NathanJefferson]

The advantage of hooking up is you can sell back excess power during the day to pay for the power you use at night when you aren't generating anything. This also would save you from having to buy a large battery array.

If I were to go solar I would be hooked up, at least until I saved enough to buy the battery array .

 

[NathanJefferson]

Oh, and even if there is an ordinance that you HAVE to be hooked up, that doesn't mean you have to use it. you could have it hooked to a separate breaker box that doesn't power anything, or could be used only to power high current items like heater/stove/arc welder/etc.

 

[ClydeB]

I have been looking into off the grid solar too. Not found anything regarding "have to be hooked up" to your local electric provider. But have found information regarding selling electricity back to your local provider.

OUCC: Green Power

Consumers who wish to reduce their electric bills by generating their own solar or wind energy can do so by installing generators and metering equipment to measure energy output. When you don’t need all of your self-generated power, your system can be designed to sell power back to the utility – running your meter backward. Net metering is available to customers of investor-owned electric utilities in Indiana.​

• You must follow specific rules to ensure your safety and the safety of utility workers.
• Each utility has specific parameters for net metering, as approved by the IURC.
• If you are interested in installing such a system, talk to your utility and review the IURC’s net metering rule.

 

[Bunnykid68]

Just quit paying your electric bill, they will disconnect it for you without you even asking them to do it.

 

[CBR1000rr]

Just quit paying your electric bill, they will disconnect it for you without you even asking them to do it.

Yes they will!!!!

I've been wondering about those who are off the grid and produce more electricity than they consume. What happens to the excess?

 

[Llamaguy]

It looks much more advantagious to do a grid-tied system than to go off-grid. The batteries required are large and expensive, and that money could be used for a larger array. If you were to have enough capacity you could use grid power at night and still not have a bill.

 

[shibumiseeker]

Yes they will!!!!

I've been wondering about those who are off the grid and produce more electricity than they consume. What happens to the excess?

Depends on how on tops of things I am. When I see the battery bank getting full I turn on things that consume more power. That's the time I run machinery I might normally run off generator. In the summer excess power gets dumped into the air conditioner. In the winter the lead smelter gets turned on and I do some bullet casting.

If I'm not around or feeling lazy then the charge controller just reduces the charge to the batteries and the power is simply not used.

Power management is a key fundamental to living off-grid.

 

[Wdsman11]

Grid-tie system would allow you to utilize the power you generated but when large capacity is need (ie air compressor or welder) you pull the power off the grid. A off-grid system trying to run large demand items like the ones listed above require alot more capacity(batteries) and a much larger inverter to power them. The comment above about shocking lineman is called backfeeding and it is a huge problem for the utilities mostly when people use generators during and electrical outage. Depending on the amount of power you are making may determine if you want to sell back to the utility. If you choose to sell--- most utilities call this Net Metering in which you are charged for the Net amount used. Typically once you are reassigned to Net Metering you rate can be undesireable. As utilities currently monopolies you want to check your specif utilies "electric tarriff" to determine if this type of metering is good for you.

 

[eric001]

When I had a guy from the power company meet with me to do one of those lovely efficiency profiles for my house and power usage, one of the things I asked him was about solar--specifically what happened to excess power pushed back into the grid. His answer was that this excess power HAD to be bought by the power company at a regulated price much higher than the price I paid to buy power from the company. I honestly don't remember the exact prices, nor even the ballpark, but it was significantly higher to sell it back than to buy it.

 

[Wdsman11]

They do have to buy it but there are stringent requirement on the quality of the power also. The higher kilowatt price makes the deal unattractive unless you are creating huge amounts. As a note: If I were making smaller amounts of power, much less than my montly usage, I would not contact them about the metering. I would also install and automatic transfer switch to ensure I was not uncesssary endangering a lineman though.

 

[maverick18]

In Indiana MOST utilities pay you a tiny amou t per KWH you sell back to them compared to the huge price you pay for the electicity you use. Its less than wholesale price through TiPMONT and I think Nipsco too. Dont know now that I am on Duke.
The real reason you want alternative energy (when you are reading a survival forum) is that when the lights go out, YOURS don't. And I think that having grid tie and no batteries is a bad decision when you are thinking of SHTF eventualities. EMP would travel the lines and smoke all of your equipment. Or witbout batteries you have no power on cloudy days or at night.
What I have is a small, separate system with a medium sized panel and an oversized battery bank. I plan on adding more panels in the future and bought cables, inverter, charge controller, etc larger than needed for future expansion. I have it wired to my shed where I reload with some lights, a fan, and an inverter. It can easily removed and reinstalled in my house if SHTF.

 

[Exodus]

If your tied to the grid you MUST have it so that if line side goes down your main trips or an interlock that prevents you from tying your panels to the grid. Which to me is pointless your either on the grid or panels only and must blackout your house to switch. But the (not sure what its called so I'll call it an ABT, although its not a bus transfer just seperation.

There are codes for this stuff so be careful if doing it yourself.

 

[MikeDVB]

Those that have these solar setups, can you provide some links to info on it? Hoping to build a house in the next year and would like to be as efficient/self sufficient as possible.

 

[shibumiseeker]

Those that have these solar setups, can you provide some links to info on it? Hoping to build a house in the next year and would like to be as efficient/self sufficient as possible.

https://www.indianagunowners.com/forums/survival_and_disaster_preparedness/199490-electricity_generation-2.html

Starting on post 17


Also, do a search on solar and my username, I've posted lots over the years here.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...aredness/199490-electricity_generation-2.html

Starting on post 17


Also, do a search on solar and my username, I've posted lots over the years here.

If I win the lottery, can I hire you as an off-grid energy consultant?

 

[CathyInBlue]

And when everyone's lights are out but yours, the criminal element knows just who to rob.

I'm making provisions to be able to black out my house so that from the outside, it looks just as dead as everyone else in the event of a black out, even though the rooms will still be blazing with light. I'm also taking steps to convert all of my room lighting to white LEDs. In that way, there can be a set of cheap car batteries that are kept charged and at room temp, and in an emergency, the lighting system wouldn't even realize there was no mains power coming in.

Of course, that doesn't do anything for powering the fridge, freezer, HVAC, comms, computers, machine tools, etc. in event of a black out, but then life is full of trade-offs.