Grid-Tie Sign at Road for Fire Dept

[watermanhfl]

Hi,
I have not posted in awhile but very active with RE.  Local fire chief came to my house and wants a sign by road to tell them I have capability to energize the wires at the road.  We showed him our disconnect switch and combiner box breakers.  Also wrote a short note on our system.
There was a local car accident in front of another house with panels and department was not prepared for what to do with downed power line on car.
Is there a standard sign that others have used?  Chief wanted a lightening bolt.  I also hear that some towns want people with portable generators to have a similar sign.
Tks

[DamonHD]

This is give you an idea of what has to go up on UK systems:

http://www.hollybrookps.co.uk/labels-tools-ancillaries/mcs-approved-warning-label-bundles.html

specifically the stuff about "WARNING DUAL SUPPLY".

Rgds

Damon

[thirteen]

I live in Montana and have a freind that works for the power company. The fire departmant had a meeting with them and is trying to require a sign on the transformer pole and one on the house disconnect if it is a grid tired system or if it is a stand alone off grid system. They have just started looking into training someone to be able to come in and use your system if emergency power is needed for them to use. But each system is different from house to house yet with a meter they can detemine your usage. They want to standardize any system that is grid tied. They want only two sizes allowed for a grid tied system.  To me it sounds like there are trying to start a process to try and find a way to start billing us for the power we make ourselves.  Big Brother reaches out with a greedy hand again and as always wants it filled. According to what I have read the power company cannot do it directly but they are trying to go around everything by using the fire departmant requirements for needing a meter on your grid tied system or off grid system. I was wondering how they would try and get into our pockets. It just started last week. Around here there has been an increase in off grid systems. Although done silently there is several business that have put in solar systems and only use 1/2 of the power they used to.  Because they have dropped their use of power down they get a much lower bill at a preset low rate and the power company is saying it costs them more to maintain the system than what they are getting out of it. Whey want their rates raised to cover the costs. Next the big brother will need to tax our food that we grow.  Probably a garden income tax if we trade with our nieghbor tomatos for plums.  A 1099GT  G is for garden tax.
13

[SparWeb]

Since I wouldn't want a fire-axe swung through my battery cables if the Fire Dept came, I put a sticker on my meter that reads like this:


THE OFF-GRID RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM CAN NOT ENERGIZE THE HOUSE ELECTRICAL PANEL.
THE RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM SUPPLIES POWER TO THE SEPARATE BARN ELECTRICAL PANEL.


(That's just off the top of my head, the actual wording may be a little better.)
I didn't decorate my label with lightning bolts or cute wind turbine glyphs.
Someone with a grid-tied electrical equipment would need something different.
Your sticker should tell them where the disconnect is, and the picture you actually need is a) were to find it and b) the off position.
A lightning bolt is not a useful graphic.  The only other graphic I think would be of use is maybe a solar panel, because they see them on your roof.

Is this a big issue because some inverters fail to drop-out when the grid is disconnected?  Surely the anti-islanding grid-tied inverters (necessary for approval of the interconnect in most jurisdictions) should prevent the problem they're trying to address.  I won't deny the fire-fighters the right to MAKE SURE if they feel the need to.

[gww]

I go with "Thirteen"  In our Missouri they passed a bill that was going to put meters on everybodys private well.  Only two members voted against the bill.  They had a public meeting in my small town and probly Three or four hundred pissed off people showed up and demanded that they recend the bill.  They aurgued that they could just fix some things in it but we got commitment before the meeting that they recend not just adjust the bill.

Our republican district represenative who stated he was right of rush limbah tryied to argue just to amend it.  After pointing out he must be on more drugs then rush he commited to recind not ammend.

Mo. is republican controlled and only two people out of all the represenatives, one a democrat, voted against the well meter bill.  It was passed in secret and commissiners for the plan picked.

Nobody said we would have to pay meter charges but most felt they had to pay for the well to be dug and didn't want meters.
Cheers
gww

[bart]

   Was that county or state? Guess I had better start listening to the news again.
Where they wanting to measure water usage or power used?

[gww]

It was state, Bush was still president.  I can't remember the exact year.  It wasn't covered well in the papers.  People found out and it was recinded almost imediatly.  I remember cause frank barnetz ran for a mid term senate race and won.  He was one of the two to vote against it when it was passed.  It was about water usage not power.  Even so it feeds on my paranoia as "Thirteen's" responce above does.  I believe the excuse for presented for its need had to do with water quality in the branson area.  Big build up of buisness affecting water quality.  I am in gasconade county. 

It also had like a 2% charge/tax on something (can't remember) so they could pay for the appointed  commissioners. 

I never trust when the goverment wants to measure that they won't want to charge.

Sort of like the old days, westinghouse wasn't going to develop anything that they couldn't control and charge for.
Cheers
gww

PS  If you live in a rural aria and have ground mounts and put a sign at the end of your road it might be like; "come on in and help yourself to my panels."

[bart]

"PS  If you live in a rural aria and have ground mounts and put a sign at the end of your road it might be like; "come on in and help yourself to my panels."

  Must be a back story here. Yes I am currently planning on ground mounts. Yes I am in a "semi" rural area. Green county.

[madlabs]

I've been a volunteer FF for about 15 years now. As an off-gridder, I am our depts. "official" RE guy. We approach every building around here the same: Assuming that it is indeed back-feeding the grid. Almost every home here has a back up genny and a lot of them are installed incorrectly. We have a fair number of off grid/ grid tied homes here and on the one occasion we have had one on fire we avoided the power lines and put it out.

There are classes being held in CA here now for FF and RE installations. I'm going to take one this year so then I'll know what the "official" procedure is. But in reality it is all the same, avoid any chance of contact with HV.

[DamonHD]

Yes, including aiming a jet of water at a panel in sunlight...

Rgds

Damon

[SparWeb]

This report is probably helpful, Madlabs:

http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/research/fftacticssolarpower.pdf

[Frank S]

the document jumped around a lot but finally got to the fire safety instructions for FF&FR
 at page 65 through 67. the rest may be useful info for training of the many instillation  techniques they may encounter.
 Not sure what the DHS has to do with fire prevention or safety or in fire fighting other than maybe it is helping to fund the training workshop.

[madlabs]

Spar, interesting read. When you sum it up though, it says:

PV systems are always live during the day.
Arrays may complicate rooftop actions (aiming water, egress etc).
Array weight may affect roof structure.

It makes a brief mention of batteries and their by-products if melted/spilled. The batteries are what I would like signage for. Arrays you can see. Electrical equipment is always considered live. But I bet most people have all kinds of nasty stuff stored near batteries. Goodness knows I do. A yummy mix of chemicals with explosives ( spray cans, propane tanks, paint cans etc) worries me more. I can tell you that the FF's I know approach outbuildings like sheds, barns and such with extreme caution, you never know what is inside.

Pretty classic FD document. Almost 100 pages that could be summarized in 10. Bet that the training takes a day and could be a couple hours long. Still worthwhile, don't get me wrong.

[XeonPony]

This is why I insist on a well isolated modular system, it solves every issue as there is a clear decisive kill link in each step of the system

Pannel disconect > Charge controller disconect >  Battery master disconect (Opens both charge control and load) > AC Inverter disconect (Kills AC system) all marked clearly, batteries should all ways be in an insulated fire proofed box.

You are responsible for your life and others around you! make sure your systems are safe.

Think I'll make a system blue print and an action plan and give it to the local fire department! never would have thought about it till now.

[SparWeb]

I confess, I skimmed the preamble (40 pages) and actually read only the recommendations pages, of which there are 3.
It does approach the topic from the "newbie" perspective; explaining just about everything, before finally getting to the point.

I was searching for something else, in fact, when I found that.  The thing I really wanted to find was an article about the safety hazards in a very specific case, an analysis of the causes of a fire (commercial building with PV on the roof) and the threats posed to the fire fighters dealing with it.  Critical of the local investigation crew, too.  Much more interesting read. 

Found it here:    http://solarprofessional.com/article/?file=SP4_2_pg6_TOC     "Bakersfield Fire"

The author's perspective is more a designer's take on the problem, not the FF's, so you have to read through it to discover where the dangers were when putting the fire out.  Still, it's the article that opened my eyes to the subject, and I took action in a few locations of my system, labelling things, so that it can be shut down by following the instructions.  This winter's weather has caused one of the stickers to come off, so I need a more durable solution.