This whole that follows, was triggered by Ella's Fronius reference fire article below.
I have a Fronius string inverter. Its an 11.5KW single phase unit. I really like their products. However, the DER program that PPL was able to get the PUC and related "bodies" to sign off on, requires extra burden by any of the inverter manufactures to pay to get their products certified by PPL in order for them to be used anywhere in their territory. I installed my Fronius before this program was implemented. To be clear, all the ANSI and other standards that all these manufactures have to get, to make sure their inverter products meet the current specifications for a huge quantity of requirements to be able to even sell in the market place as a grid tie product, is no small challenge.
But PPL managed to go a step further and convince the mentioned "parties" that just meeting all these rigorous specifications (Most of them out of California) wasn't enough. They must bare the additional "load" and meet PPL's specs for their connectivity to their DER (Distributed Energy Resource) device, otherwise a customer will not be allowed to put a system in their utility territory. SO like the Hollywood movie, Hot Nightclub waiting line scene, if your name is not on the list (Night AT The Roxbury), too bad so sad.
From my perspective, this is egregious private interest BS. The reason all these rigorous standards exist, is to have safe products that meet a common set of standards across the boards, for reasonable engineering expectations regarding function and safety. If a singular entity wishes to demand more, because there is something they wish to accomplish, all the burden should be on them to test connectivity to THEIR device, not the all ready heavily taxed manufacturing entities who already comply with very strict standards.
This only serves to restrict product availability for implementing PV systems. Fronius has zero products available that are on PPL's DER list. The below URL is the current allowed list.
https://www.pplelectric.com/-/media/PPLElectric/At-Your-Service/Docs/REMSI/Metering-Equipment-Tables/PPL-EU-Smart-Inverter-List.ashx
Yet the company has a really well established versatile line of great string inverters.
There are so many great, established inverter products out there that an installer or end customer can not use, because of these restrictions.
This I view as another example of monopolistic Capitalism, using an excuse such as, its for the greater good of RE and distributed energy systems, to really satisfy the slowing of the demand destruction cliff approaching, for all these regulated monopolies.
Anyone have any thoughts or personal experience with these types of agendas?
I first expressed my feelings regarding this, in an article I wrote back in October of 2021, referenced below, though this was not Fronius referenced at the time.
https://fcfcfcwearesolar.blogspot.com/2021/10/balancing-load.html
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william fitch
Owner
www.WeAreSolar.com
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