ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Alternative Energy How's the solar installs???

John,

Well I think NJ is trying to be a "Green" energy state and that is why there is a lot of solar here in NJ. I have 2 big plans on my desk for review. They are at 2 schools in one of my town. The one will generate 400 amps at 480 volt. I still haven't done a complete review yet.

I don't know who made them but there are some big arrays going up in Mass. going towards Cape Cod. I 've been seeing more wind turbines in RI.

There are alot of systems going in here in Massachusetts. The state has incentives which helps.There are many solar farms going in also.

here in NY...u can figure on MONTHS between 1st visit to customer and all the paperwork for permits and rebate OK's...tough sell....

They have plenty of rebate promises going unfilled here in Florida because they ran out of money and it is unlikely they are ever going to have it. I wonder about how many poor homeowners who are worried about foreclosure because they financed the solar against their house, planning on the rebate to pay it off.

WARNING...SOAPBOX COMING OUT!!

Government rebates are generally a bribe for someone to make the wrong economic choice.

That's just my opinion...but people make the right choice, there's no need to induce them to do so. If people make what someone considers 'the wrong choice', there's a need to 'sweeten the deal' to get them to change their minds. If solar makes economic sense, by all means use it. If it doesn't, why would you use it?

Here near the steel mills, the EPA and environmentalists fought tooth and nail to fine and regulate the mills into treating their water and reusing it. Once the mills reluctantly installed the treatment plants, they discovered that it ended up saving them money (lots of it). A straightforward presentation to the mills showing how they could save money (and the environment) would have been much more friendly than shoving it down their throats and would not have created such animosity between the various groups.

If there's a good idea that makes sense, explain it and it will sell itself. If you need to bribe or threaten folks to agree, there's something fishy about it.

END OF RANT...SOAPBOX GOING AWAY!!!
We now return you to your original thread.

Vermont is usually the first of last state to do anything, basically due to our legislature being comprised of old ex hippies or old ex farmers

We signed onto the Green machine like it was custom made for the Green Mountain state , when the rebates came along every out of work putz threw a shingle up, lettered their PU trucks, and went about foisting their save the planet installs upon the public

They didn't need a license, few were NABCEP certified, and even if they were.... to say 'article 690' to them was about as good as saying 'Rt 91' .....

Even the insurance cabal was slow on the uptake, being some of their rooftop installs held little consideration for damages via weight (iirc, our snow load is like 60lbs a sq ft) and/or penetrations

And so the state, in their infinite wisdom of things 'market' bred an entire new trade of hacks, who of course took every opportunity to make a $$$ due to the holes legislated for them

But us EC's are always last on the call list with the 'ol....'just hook it all in' line....

~S~

~s~:
Yes, we have a few hacks still around. There was an uptick in resi solar apps during December, I have no idea why. I'm also not up on the rebate scene.

Most of the initial rebates have ended , at least here, HotOne

They smartened up a bit towards the end, insisting on the NAC cert, but that had it's own spawning of sub-installers who would call in the cert for a %

I did talk to one NH sparky during the height of it, seems he was some sort of solar guru over by the coast, claimed there was this big jihad to legislate solar as license required, not sure how that all sugared off?

Such are the nature of things here , it always seem like doing biz,or public safety is hobbled by either too much bureaucracy, or not enough of it .....

~S~

IMHO, the NJ bureaucracy has a reputation of being tough. Sometimes that is very factual, occasionally...not so.

We require a lic for solar. As you implied, there are ways around that. A forbidden subject, and one that is difficult or impossible to do anything about.

That said, we are getting off the subject of this thread. We could start another, or continue via email.