There was an article in Electrek a few year ago comparing the process of installing rooftop solar in Australia vs. USA, and how it was chalk and cheese. The concept that you could have a single company install your solar and manage everything including getting the rebates (SRECs) and meter changeovers, and have everything done within in a matter of weeks, was simply gobsmacking to the ‘Mericans. And they explained that is the reason why solar is so cheap in Australia compared to the USA.
The process in the USA is incredibly bureaucratic, costly, and lengthy Involving multiple parties, “bull****” permitting, and Byzantine grid laws.
Tend to agree with this.
Back when we pulled the trigger with Solar, it turned out to get SRECs there was a requirement in NJ that the amount of energy generated per year couldn't exceed the amount of energy used by the house in the previous year. So far, so good: But the plans had to go to this bureaucracy created to review this process, where they would use some computer program to tot up all the numbers and verify this.
After a couple of weeks after signing the contract and, seriously, just attempting to get a status update, I called the installers to ask how things were going and what the status of the various things (NJ bureaucracy, local building permits, power company changeover to Net Metering) and if there was anything I could do to help. Wasn't expecting much, honestly.
This was on a Wednesday. The person on the other end of the line said, "Is Friday all right? We got people free to do the work!" Not knowing any better, but with eyebrows raised, said, "Sure. We'll be here."
A crowd of six or seven people showed up, immediately started putting lag bolts in the rafters, rejiggering the vent pipe locations to miss the panels going in, and doing work in the garage to mount the inverters. They did an excellent job and were
gone by Saturday afternoon; somebody might have come by Sunday or Monday for a little last-minute cleanup. Nice job, it was all working, and the standard electric meter was already running backwards.
Then we realized that the building permits hadn't actually been issued; they did apply, and, over the next couple of weeks, various electrical, structural, and plumbing inspectors came by and put their stamps of approval on the little sticky bits of paper. I ushered the electrical guy around myself: This was the first time he'd seen such a thing. Being a EE, I was capable of and did explain it all to him while he scratched his head. He liked the electrical work. The structure guy came and went sans problems, as did the plumbing inspector.
But this is where things got weird. Turns out that the sequence, from the bureaucracy's point of view, was, 1) Plans, 2) Permits. Then they would give an OK, then the work would be done, and then OK'd permits delivered, but the system was to Remain Off. Then the bureaucrats would contact the power company to get a new, special meter; and, after that was installed, then, and only then, they would allow SRECs to be recorded. And, at that point, I was to turn the system on.
Um. A working system three weeks after signing the contract got them Pissed Off. They denied the plans by claiming that taking the system created too much energy; and they got the "used energy limit" by taking
December's energy usage from the complete list of 12 monthly bills and multiplying that by 12, resulting in a Used Energy that was much too small. (In other words, they cheated, on purpose.)
Worse, the utility company had No Idea that any of this was going on. Their meter reader came by after a couple of months of the system being on and the meter running backwards a lot, and noted that the meter reading was
less than that of the previous month. They figured we had run the meter forward all the way around and sent us a bill for around $10k. We called them, explained what was up, and then I chased through the most labyrinthine list of phone numbers you've ever seen and got the guy in charge of the group that changed out meters. I threw myself on his mercy, he smiled audibly, and said they'd be out in the next couple of days to do the deed, which they did. (Which is one of the reasons I think that PSE&G of NJ is one of the Superior electrical utilities in the nation.)
This still left us sans SRECs which, at the time, were going for $600 a pop. As it happens, the office doing the work turned out to be a few miles from where we lived, a miracle, given that NJ is 250-odd miles from end to end. The SO and I attempted to show up in person, twice, to ask, "What can we do? What did we do wrong? Why did you make this insane math error?" We never got an actual answer, but, after the second try (three months after they got the paperwork) they deigned to send us a Rejection Letter.
At this point I called the installers and, more or less, asked, "Help?" The installers actually had a lawyer who picked up the phone and heard our tale of woe.
This nice gent wrote a letter to the bureacrat's lawyer, cc to the person doing the denying, and pointed out the the SO and I hadn't actually done anything wrong and, that, really, it was between his firm and the bureau. He admitted that they had run too fast, but that was hardly a reason to put us in the lurch. And genteelly suggested a lawsuit might be in the offing if they didn't Do Something. Either from his firm or us.
Nice letter. We got our approval about a week later and it took another two weeks before we got properly entered into the GATS system and started selling SRECs. Seven months after the install and eight months after the contract signing.
Sheesh.
