Sean White‘s Solar and Energy Storage Podcast

Microgrids

"Microgrid" is a term that is thrown around a lot and a lot of people using this term are not using it as it is defined in the NEC. The 2023 NEC has a few new microgrid terms. Additionally the 2023 NEC has renamed AC Coupling and DC Coupling  to be AC Interconnected and DC Interconnected.

 

Have fun and listen and by the way, go to www.solarSEAN.com and become certifiably NABCEPed!

Herve Billiet, Co-founder and CEO, Ipsun Solar and Ipsun Sunvoy

Herve Billiet is an electro-mechanical engineer who co-designed the first Belgian solar car way back when he was 21 years old. Soon after, he was invited by MIT in Boston to advance its sustainable transportation initiatives.

 

He went on to design his first residential solar PV system in 2009 using the 2008 National Electrical Code. Herve is from Europe but he knows the National Electrical Code he's not an expert over there designing solar systems in Europe.

 

And another thing is he worked for a few consulting firms, Accenture among them, and the US Department of Energy as a Strategy Consultant working on some of the largest renewable energy projects in the world. I bet that's getting bigger every day.

 

He's a business partner with Joe Marhamati whom he met at the Department of Energy’s Headquarters to establish Ipsun Solar. Herve and Joe grew Ipsun Solar from a small local installer to a prominent installer in the Northern Virginia Washington DC area doing both residential and commercial solar and advocacy for solar. Herve and Joe were seen roaming the NABCEP conference. Cool dudes! While they were running a solar business Herve saw the need for better software and co-founded Ipsun Sunvoy and we're going to get into what they do but they make tools and things coordinating different types of software and communications together. It’s awesome!

 

He’s a proud father of three boys, a CEO and he is fighting climate change.

Climate Change Activism Coupling (CCA-coupling)

At the COP 27 conference there was a lot of talk about other issues besides climate change, which I thought was interesting. Here were my notes:

 

I find it interesting at COP27 that there are a lot of other issues that are not directly about solving the CO2 crisis. Human rights, sexual rights, indigenous rights and economic injustice are all very important and all can be indirectly linked to climate change problems, but we need to get the jerks that are against justice on the side of reducing CO2 growth fast in order to move forward fast.

 

There are many jerks, especially in Florida (that’s a joke), that see human rights as something called “woke” and then when you combine it with CO2 problems, they are automatically against both at once. We need to fix the emergency, make the race to lower the CO2 rate an economic issue that even greedy selfish people can stand behind. Greedy selfish people can stand behind energy security, energy independence, ramping up the cheapest form of energy production, factories in America, good paying jobs, making it a made locally issue. We are not going to get there without the greedy selfish people on our side. We must get along!  We are at a time when doing the right thing is also doing the greedy thing, since renewable energy is the future and will make the next wave of millionaires and billionaires.

 

This podcast was originally written at the UN COP27 conference in Egypt in November 2022 and then tied up back at home.

 

To learn about the technical aspects of solar go to www.solarSEAN.com and become certifiably NABCEP.

Bill Brooks Talks PV IV Curves

In this podcast Bill gets down to the basics talking about PV IV curves, Short Circuit Current (Isc), Maximum Power Current (Imp), Open Circuit Voltage (Voc), Maximum Power Voltage (Vmp), Maximum Power Point (MPP), Light Emitting Diodes (LED) in reverse is a solar cell or aka photo diode and if you put power into a solar cell it makes invisible light (infrared).

 

To learn more go to www.solarSEAN.com and get NABCEP certified while you are at it!

2023 NEC Article 690 PV Systems Part 3 Disconnecting Means can be fun!

We take something that can be boring and run it through the Sean White "boring-to-exciting converter" and out comes something sounding fun!

 

In this podcast we go over different ways of disconnecting solar circuits.

 

To learn more, go to www.solarSEAN.com or www.HeatSpring.com/sean

 

Sean White teaches in-person and on-demand online solar and storage courses everywhere. He is currently writing a book on the 2023 NEC with Bill Brooks.

Egypt COP27

This podcast was recorded at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm El Sheikh Egypt on November 16 2022. 

 

COP stands for something boring, Conference of the Parties, which means that countries and other organizations are the parties. Sometimes I look at what our countries are doing and it is like we are having a big fossil fuel party! It is literally powering parties like Burning Man with flames of fuel! Anyway, this is the 27th year of COP, so it is called COP 27 and the more famous one was in Paris, when they made the Paris Accord or Paris Agreement, back when we had a very famous and likable Kenyan President at COP 21. This is where the US, China and all of the other big CO2 emitters made an agreement to do things to limit temperature rises to 1.5C over preindustrial levels. Being an American, I do not like the 1.5C number, since we use F for Fahrenheit and a change of 1C is the same as a change of 1.8F, so 1.5C x 1.8 = 2.7F. Anyone that uses F for the temperature of their house or the beach should not use C only when they are talking about climate temperatures, unless they are trying to downplay the emergency. Not since the rock that took out the dinosaurs (except for the birds, which are dinosaurs) has the climate changed so fast. Humans are extremely smart and can tell the temperature of the earth throughout the ages and the CO2 in the atmosphere. There have always been slow gradual changes, but nothing like this without an asteroid. We humans are so smart, that we can also fix this emergency very fast.

 

The big topic in the news this year is about having the rich countries that have contributed the most to CO2 in the atmosphere to help pay for the other countries that are too poor to do much about it. They have high interest rates, to the point where it is like financing things on a high interest credit card, which is financially impossible to make and investment world form.

 

The problem I see is that in the biggest polluting country of them all, my country, the USA, we have something called politics and there are enough people against paying for our original sin (we are in a biblical place here), that it is not going to happen on a big scale, no matter how bad the US President wants it.

 

So what is going to make this happen?

 

Here is my solution…

I see that humans and other organisms can grow like a virus (go viral). You see doubling rates and as many of you may know, of you double a dollar for a month, you have over a billion dollars. In fact if the month has 31 days, you get 2x more than a 30 day month.

 

Now we can translate this to a disruptive technology, such as solar, wind and storage. We are getting doubling rates and the trick here is to speed up the doubling rate. Not to accept a 4 year doubling rate, to go for a 1 year doubling rate. Some pessimists will have plenty of reasons why this cannot happen, and the answer is that the reason that this cannot happen is if we listen to pessimists.

 

We have to scale like we are putting the effort of a world war into it and the big thing here is instead of having a war and having a lot of people die, we have seen that wars can be good for the economy, so we can have a huge economic boom, without the war deaths.

 

It is inevitable that we will scale up solar, wind and storage, the question is how slow (or fast) are we going to go? If we go fast, there are many benefits, plus we are going to do it anyway, so let’s get it done.

 

Solar and Wind are already the cheapest forms of energy in the world. Energy storage is getting less expensive and in a few years, it will economically stupid to buy a new car that is not an EV and these EVs can easily be plugged in and wired for grid support, which will happen. The question is, are we going to sit around and whine, or are we humans going go get it done!

 

We are humans. We are the smartest thing in the universe. We can easily figure this out. If we put in an effort, we can pick a temperature and dial it in. We can put CO2 from the atmosphere back underground where it came from and set a thermostat. We are humans. We can do anything we set our minds too. It will happen, the question is when. Waiting is stupid. Getting it done now is smart and makes big money.

 

If the poor countries want a strategy, they can align themselves with the counties that help them set up solar, wind and storage. If the US wants to set up a base on some island, then it needs to come with solar, wind and storage. Perhaps if the island nation has a low credit rating, the US (or other country) can bring their credit rating to the base.

 

There are other low CO2 solutions, but we see right now that solar and wind are the least expensive, so it is a scaling solution. We need factories, good labor, robots making robots that make PV, wind and solar. 

 

If we distract ourselves with excuses, neat ideas that do not come to fruition and blame for what someone did 50 years ago, then we will keep walking in circles. The solution is here. The solution will bring us out of any recession. The solution will create jobs, the solution will help children breathe clean air. The solution is scaling up big time solar, wind and storage. No excuses. All positive. Let’s get going.

 

For classes and everything controlled by the Sun God Ra, go to www.solarSEAN.com

2021 International Residential Code (IRC) and Energy Storage Systems (ESS) with Bill Brooks (BB)

2021 IRC requirements for ESS units to be less than 20kWh, 3-foot separation between ESS units, exceptions due to large-scale fire testing (UL 9540A), distance of ESS from garage window vs. window of living space, SolSmart.org PV, Future SolSmart ESS material Bill is developing, 2024 IRC Proposals, lithium-ion not good on the outside of a house in cold places and NFPA 855 Standard for ESS.

2018 International Fire Code (IFC) for Energy Storage Systems (ESS) with Bill Brooks and related topics

This video is based on the 2018 IFC and there are many places that are using the 2018 IFC, in fact I just taught an ESS  class to inspectors based on the 2015 IFC. You will have to check your own state to see which version is adopted. At the time I am writing this, the 2018 IFC is the most widely used version, although the 2021 IFC has already been released. Additionally, most of the language between different versions is the same, so understanding one version means you mostly understand the other. Don’t be one of those people that overly worries about studying a different version of a Code.

 

Topics we cover include:

 

Large-scale fire testing (UL 9540A)

FMEA

Container batteries/ESS

Lead-acid, NiCad

Lithium-ion

Maximum sizes

Maximum allowable battery quantities

UL 9540

UL 1973

EMS energy management systems

BMS battery management systems

2023 NEC Poetry Reading Article 690 Part 2 Circuit Requirements

The 2023 NEC has been released and it is time to see how voltage, current and rapid shutdown look in the future!

 

2023 690 Part 2 includes:

 

690.7 Voltage

690.8 Current

690.9 OCPD

690.11 DC Arc Fault Protection

690.12 Rapid Shutdown

 

Reading the NEC can be heavy stuff, so if you do not get it the first time around, try listening to it backwards synced with Dark Side of the Moon. Then you will get the secret meaning.

 

Learn more and take happy classes on deciphering the Code at www.solarSEAN.com or www.HeatSpring.com/sean

UL 3741 Rapid Shutdown solution where the PV array can stay up to 1000V using SMA inverters with Sollega or Ironridge racks!

Rapid Shutdown has traditionally meant putting module level power electronics in the array for PV systems on buildings. There has always been this part of the NEC 690.12(B)(2)(1) that gave you an option to comply with rapid shutdown inside the array with a listed hazard control system. Surprisingly, we can now go back to having something to what rapid shutdown used to be in the 2014 NEC, which we called array level rapid shutdown. Let’s see if someone gets something like this listed for a residential roof.

 

Links:

https://www.sma-america.com/newsroom/current-news/news-details/news/5123-sma-america-and-sollega-partner-to-debut-the-first-ul-3741-pvhcs-certified-commercial-and-indus.html

https://files.ironridge.com/flat-roof-mounting/resources/brochures/IronRidge_BX_System_UL3741_Installation_Addendum.pdf

https://solarbuildermag.com/featured/ul-3741-rooftop-pv-system-complies-with-nec-690-12-without-mlpe/

 

To see a visual version, take these classes at www.HeatSpring.com/sean 

40-Hour NABCEP Advanced PV Certification Training and CEUS

30-Hour NABCEP Advanced PV Certification Training and CEUS

2020 NEC PV, Energy Storage, Building and Fire Codes for PV System Inspectors