Santa Clara County retroactively Changing ESS Rules

[heather5551212]

Lol, when they open the new NEM 3.0 decision up for public comment, make sure to drop your $0.02 (or $20,000.00) in there to tell the CPUC how PG&E can't be trusted to have people's best interests in mind, and how you believe local AHJs are making residential solar and ESS extra challenging which adds a lot of costs/time to execute installs. So the CPUC shouldn't blindly assume PG&E and local AHJs are able/willing to enable future residential solar+ESS.

It is kind of annoying that there is no state-run or even a CPUC-run remediation office for SB 100. It would be immensely helpful to have a body independent of the IOUs and local AHJs to help resolve issues (without involving lawyers).

I fully intend to bring myself and the mountain residents to provide feedback. There are ~2500 of us on this circuit comprising 92 miles of wire. You haven’t lived in terror until you’ve had 80 mph winds during a shutoff and no means of outside communication to summon help. And only a 60 year old Huey to scout fire that can’t fly at night.
Ironically, my dad just called. He’s in town, but also county fire. Batteries are being installed now, in his garage - no bollards. Same fire district. Actually, same engine gets deployed usually. I’m just so tired of this nonsense.

 

[heather5551212]

Oh boy. I’m sorry to report that Rick Gomez and Semper Solaris aren’t friends. Upon the 3rd submission, the vendor again screwed up the paperwork so bad that they put my house in violation. But it’s not in violation. I don’t have the violation they said I have on the plans they submitted, but of course - I get to be the one responsible for dealing with the violation, not the vendor - who said they’re not responsible (of course). I thought they had to actually inspect your house to find you in violation? Not take something off a plan that a 3rd party wrote? In any case I think it’s time to end this saga of extreme incompetence. I didn’t have any trouble finaling our main panel replacement a few weeks ago.

 

[Vines]

Oh boy. I’m sorry to report that Rick Gomez and Semper Solaris aren’t friends. Upon the 3rd submission, the vendor again screwed up the paperwork so bad that they put my house in violation. But it’s not in violation. I don’t have the violation they said I have on the plans they submitted, but of course - I get to be the one responsible for dealing with the violation, not the vendor - who said they’re not responsible (of course). I thought they had to actually inspect your house to find you in violation? Not take something off a plan that a 3rd party wrote? In any case I think it’s time to end this saga of extreme incompetence. I didn’t have any trouble finaling our main panel replacement a few weeks ago.

Sorry for your saga there, sounds rough.

I agree that enforcement doesn't happen equally or even make sense to the average homeowner. It is unfortunate that you have to go though this, but do not accept no as an answer from your installer. If they screwed up, they should fix it.

 

[holeydonut]

Sorry for your saga there, sounds rough.

I agree that enforcement doesn't happen equally or even make sense to the average homeowner. It is unfortunate that you have to go though this, but do not accept no as an answer from your installer. If they screwed up, they should fix it.

Lol, but for the companies not named **[Redacted]** getting people to admit they screwed up is impossible.

33% of my daily interactions at work are trying to get people past the denial stage of brain-logic to accept the reality there is an issue that needs to be remediated.

33% additional effort is then spent trying to convince them they have a role to play in the remediation. Unfortunately a lot of people just fall back into denial again when presented with the notion they have to do something.

The remaining 33% effort is browsing TMC.

 

[heather5551212]

Lol, but for the companies not named **[Redacted]** getting people to admit they screwed up is impossible.

33% of my daily interactions at work are trying to get people past the denial stage of brain-logic to accept the reality there is an issue that needs to be remediated.

33% additional effort is then spent trying to convince them they have a role to play in the remediation. Unfortunately a lot of people just fall back into denial again when presented with the notion they have to do something.

The remaining 33% effort is browsing TMC.

Sorry guys I’ve been busy with work and my boys. I do have an update. It’s a ‘pissing contest’ of sorts between those two entities. They are both behaving less than shall we say, professional (As if that wasn’t apparent from the time that has passed since the permit was applied for on 6/1). Anyway, the inspector with the initials RG figured out he couldn’t put my home into the building code violation department off of paperwork because I had just finaled my main panel replacement on 10/14 and passed. He spoke to that inspector and confirmed no home backup generator off the main. And building code isn’t going to chase a backup generator that *might* have been there that the homeowner says wasn’t and the vendor corrected the paperwork and it’s confirmed to not be there. They have very real problems to deal with. And so I have a very nice email confirming that the permit is going to be ‘issued shortly’. Except that it’s been in ‘final processing’ for quite awhile now. For whatever that means. I didn’t have any issues with the main panel permit, except that the service is exceptionally slow and they did away with counter permits entirely. But the neighbors report similar experiences with this office, so apparently it’s typical. But hey, our sheriff just got convicted on all counts on her corruption trial and the supes just appointed a new county manager in secret, so it’s par for the course. So, batteries next year, maybe?

I think the vendor just kept submitting cookie cutter paperwork and being sloppy and didn’t conform to what the building department was asking for. However, this department doesn’t have sample paperwork showing people what they want things to look like, which would get them much better results. They are both at fault here.

 

[heather5551212]

Sorry guys I’ve been busy with work and my boys. I do have an update. It’s a ‘pissing contest’ of sorts between those two entities. They are both behaving less than shall we say, professional (As if that wasn’t apparent from the time that has passed since the permit was applied for on 6/1). Anyway, the inspector with the initials RG figured out he couldn’t put my home into the building code violation department off of paperwork because I had just finaled my main panel replacement on 10/14 and passed. He spoke to that inspector and confirmed no home backup generator off the main. And building code isn’t going to chase a backup generator that *might* have been there that the homeowner says wasn’t and the vendor corrected the paperwork and it’s confirmed to not be there. They have very real problems to deal with. And so I have a very nice email confirming that the permit is going to be ‘issued shortly’. Except that it’s been in ‘final processing’ for quite awhile now. For whatever that means. I didn’t have any issues with the main panel permit, except that the service is exceptionally slow and they did away with counter permits entirely. But the neighbors report similar experiences with this office, so apparently it’s typical. But hey, our sheriff just got convicted on all counts on her corruption trial and the supes just appointed a new county manager in secret, so it’s par for the course. So, batteries next year, maybe?

I think the vendor just kept submitting cookie cutter paperwork and being sloppy and didn’t conform to what the building department was asking for. However, this department doesn’t have sample paperwork showing people what they want things to look like, which would get them much better results. They are both at fault here.

Well, it took a couple of weeks to ‘process’ but they finally issues the permit. This is officially the slowest building department in the country. If they replaced the office with shelter cats, random walking on keyboards would produce permits at the same rate - without all the animosity. And that would certainly save the taxpayers a lot of money.

 

[JakiChan]

I'm not sure if being in San Jose proper makes things easier or harder (the requirement for bracket inspections, for example), but my installer - Freedom Solar - got both my Solar and my Powerwalls through everything with literally zero issues. And they did amazing work. Semper Solaris always gave me bad vibes. Glad I stuck with Freedom Solar.

 

[Vines]

The city of San Jose is totally different, they approve PV+PW permits without any review, and online.

I agree that Freedom Solar is a good outfit.

 

[heather5551212]

The city of San Jose is totally different, they approve PV+PW permits without any review, and online.

I agree that Freedom Solar is a good outfit.

I have an update. The Powerwalls were installed the Monday after they issued the permit (it actually took until Wednesday to complete everything). So no wait. As I’ve mentioned before my husband is a union electrician and he said that the work was really well done and exceptionally high quality work. Much better than our solar install, which he redid all the pipework to.

We finally got ahold of the full set of plans and I think it’s the County building department, to be honest. They just don’t like issuing permits. That’s all. They’re being sued over by N.San Jose/Milpitas because they don’t want to allow development to go in - and that’s a very urban area where housing and amenities are needed. Honestly, those pockets should just be incorporated by the surrounding cities…..

The good news is that with such few permits, calling an inspector out takes 2 days - in San Jose it can take up to a month to get on the schedule due to the volume.

I’m very happy with the Powerwalls - I just wish they weren’t installed during solar minimum. It’s going to be awhile before they’re fully charged since I have to clear inspection to apply for PG&E in order for them to be allowed to charge from the grid. YMMV - but them’s the rules where I live. I’m locked out of grid charging in the app until then. Still, at 20% they should be able to easily handle all the outages we’ve had lately.

 

[holeydonut]

Random bollard-themed comment for the day...

Got an email from Enphase saying that since the Enphase Encharge uses a Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) composition, it is not subject to the same bollard restrictions as the Tesla Powerwall with is Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt (NMC). I guess LFP are not susceptible to the same thermal runaway concerns as NMC.

So I guess you can run into a LFP ESS battery with your F150 Lightning and the only thing catching on fire is the F150 Lightning?

Do all these proposed bollard rules differentiate battery composition? So much fun.

 

[Vines]

Random bollard-themed comment for the day...

Got an email from Enphase saying that since the Enphase Encharge uses a Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) composition, it is not subject to the same bollard restrictions as the Tesla Powerwall with is Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt (NMC). I guess LFP are not susceptible to the same thermal runaway concerns as NMC.

So I guess you can run into a LFP ESS battery with your F150 Lightning and the only thing catching on fire is the F150 Lightning?

Do all these proposed bollard rules differentiate battery composition? So much fun.

Enphase loves to point at this as a safer installation but the ICC/CRC code doesn't care. I suspect Tesla knows a thing or 2 about avoiding battery thermal events.

LFP and NMC both can go into thermal runaway, though it is easier to set off NMC. Practically you could probably put a couple 9mm rounds into any of the battery modules and still not get to thermal runaway.

 

[holeydonut]

Enphase loves to point at this as a safer installation but the ICC/CRC code doesn't care. I suspect Tesla knows a thing or 2 about avoiding battery thermal events.

LFP and NMC both can go into thermal runaway, though it is easier to set off NMC. Practically you could probably put a couple 9mm rounds into any of the battery modules and still not get to thermal runaway.

I want to see a video of this in action... h2ofun has a few extra Powerwalls right? Who needs 7 PW's anyway...

 

[YRide]

Now that we are in 2023…do we have clarity on acceptable ESS install locations inside the garage? Especially I’m Santa Clara county / San Jose city?

 

[Vines]

Now that we are in 2023…do we have clarity on acceptable ESS install locations inside the garage? Especially I’m Santa Clara county / San Jose city?

Yes, See CRC R328.8.1 and I confirmed that Santa Clara County will follow this code.

 

[YRide]

Yes, See CRC R328.8.1 and I confirmed that Santa Clara County will follow this code.

@Vines do you know if only the ESS requires the bollard/strip protection? What about gateway2 or the load center they install? Or any conduit?

 

[YRide]

Also, does anyone know what the lateral spacing separation (side by side) requirements are 1) PW to PW, and 2) PW to wall (if not same as #1)?

 

[Benjamin Brooks]

Also, does anyone know what the lateral spacing separation (side by side) requirements are 1) PW to PW, and 2) PW to wall (if not same as #1)?

3 feet

 

[YRide]

3 feet

I actually just found it, city inspector indicated Tesla PW’s can follow their installation instruction, since they have a specific (forget number) UL listing…

It’s 10” between PW’s. But if not another PW, it looks like 2” clearance on left and 6” clearance on right (when facing the front of PW).

Page 41: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default...erwall_2_AC_GW2_NA_EN_Installation_Manual.pdf

 

[Vines]

@Vines do you know if only the ESS requires the bollard/strip protection? What about gateway2 or the load center they install? Or any conduit?

Most jurisdictions except the city of Menlo Park only apply the impact protection requirements to the ESS.

 

[cali8484]

I actually just found it, city inspector indicated Tesla PW’s can follow their installation instruction, since they have a specific (forget number) UL listing…

It’s 10” between PW’s. But if not another PW, it looks like 2” clearance on left and 6” clearance on right (when facing the front of PW).

Page 41: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default...erwall_2_AC_GW2_NA_EN_Installation_Manual.pdf

View attachment 899688

That's the Tesla specs. My understanding is that exceptions to the 3 ft rule is entirely up to the AHJ. Some AHJ's won't allow exceptions even with UL9540A test reports.