Just an opinion that may affect you.
The new rules for REC (Renewable Energy Certificate) meter location, wherein it should be located at the connection point - which is most of the time near the existing bi-directional meters - are technically and economically challenging, especially for existing residential installations.
Though the division of expenses and labor is divided between DU (Distribution Units) and QE (Qualified End-user), still the QE and solar installers absorb most of the financial and the technical requirement. It is very awkward to explain to residential owners that you will carve his outside tile flooring, run a conduit on a fence or run a fly wire on his rooftop most especially if it is aesthetically designed house.
Residential and commercial solar <100kWp in capacity are the most effective systems to reduce electricity bills when you are getting a rebate thru net-metering. Especially in residential installations wherein your daytime consumption is only about 30%-40% of the daily average consumption - if you are most of the time out for work or the children out for school. On these notes, only thru net metering program can a residential solar produced be fully maximized.
Another technical challenge for the inverter embedded system (grid-tie system) is the voltage drop from the inverter to the connection point or the main distribution panel. The IES works on voltage regulation principle wherein the inverter voltage level should always outrun the grid voltage so that the solar produced be first to be consumed by the load.
Imagine tapping your inverter on the MDP inside and running a loop going outside for the REC meter. The higher voltage drop takes toll on the inverter to cope up with the grid voltage. Previous set-up requires only that the REC meter be near the inverter. One of the factors that drive this new amendment is the difficulty of the DU to read the REC meter for their RPS requirements.
In my opinion, having a second meter outside the house is out of the norm, pose a high electrical safety risk, added cost on the initial solar investment and will hinder customer to apply for net-metering considering the difficulty of the added requirements.
Alternate solutions can be the following:
Using the inverter online monitoring platform to create a report of the total generated energy. The solar installer or end user should be responsible to submit such report to DU. Failure to submit, means disconnecting the solar.
Using an approved third-party device connected to client internet that can be monitor by the DU. It is rare for a house with solar grid tie inverter without an internet.
Solar installer to submit an estimated yearly energy that the solar will produce, using an approved solar simulation software/designer.
Classify solar installation as per capacity. Example, a less than 30kVA Inverter system should have less requirement than 30kVA Above inverter systems.
I hope these new amendments can be improved soon by the stakeholders and authorities. Though, for some it may look easy and nonsense on the paper, for sure it will silently kill the efforts of potential qualified end-users and solar installers to consider solar as a particularly good option to save electricity and somehow help the environment by using clean and free energy.
This writing is only my opinion. Still, as a solar installer, I will be following the regulations.
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