Your ATS doesn’t have to sense if it is back feeding. Why?
Because it is physically impossible for your generator to back feed the grid. That is the whole point of an ATS
Please go talk to an EE. Explaining basic concepts to you is exhausting
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It does.
That’s how it switches back to mains.Well, not mine, but my companies does. Mine is a dumb switch.
From WIKI i cited above.
When utility power returns for a minimum time, the transfer switch will transfer the house back to utility power and command the generator to turn off, after another specified amount of “cool down” time with no load on the generator. Ran out of posts, new user. No, not high. ATS aren’t magic. The nice ones do sense whether the utility is up or down, sir. A solar ATS can do this.
A conventinal prevents backfeeding by waiting for power, a solar does the opposite and allows back feeding after a delay.
Google Solar ATS.
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Your ATS senses if your generator is back feeding utility?
Are you high?
The ATS may detect the presence of utility power, but it doesn’t detect “back feeding”. The whole point of an ATS is to prevent backfeeding
Backfeeding= the generator is feeding power to the power company rather than your house.
ATS are switches meant to switch your home between either generator or utility, to make sure the generator doesn’t send power to the utility.
Also, there are solar ATS. They are absolutely allowed in Florida. They are a really shitty way to do solar power. It doesn’t do what you are descrobing. I could explain, but you seem to be having problems with some really basic concepts. I need you to do a bit of research
A conventional ATS prevents backfeed by being a physical switch, and that is how switches work
Psh. Your well reasoned and researched and cited facts have no meaning here. Hyperbole and FUD is the only thing that matters in a doctorow article.
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Hah! It may be illegal. Just pull the meter and break any chance of a backfeed. Good luck proving you “stole” services since they are offline.
The power company could send a tech out to ensure there is no backfeed, or even disconnect your house at the street. If I were without power in this heat, I would be dead in two days, max. My body does not self regulate body temp for several reasons. Plus, I have medical needs that require electricity for breathing, and meds (insulin) that goes bad once it stays above 80° F.
Nope, if I paid that much money for solar power, or a generator, I would have to tell the power company to suck sun rays - in a polite-ish way. 
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I think you’re missing the point that @pucksr has repeatedly stated. Your gas generator isn’t designed to run in concert with utility power which is why you have an ATS. It’s only designed to run when utility power is lost.
Solar on the other hand is meant to supplement utility power by feeding back into the grid your unused power, or feeding off the grid if you go over capacity (theoretically you could end up with a negative power bill).
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Nope.
It isn’t just illegal. The solar literally won’t work.
The solar power won’t come on. They are designed BY SAFETY LAW to not turn back on until the utility power comes back on. You can’t make it turn on.
You should have bought a generator.
By the way, it is totally legal to run a generator in Florida and feed your house when the power goes out.
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So the storage batteries are not available? Or can you not store the energy for those times? Maybe bypass it all with an electric generator that runs off the batteries?
A few years ago, a man in AL completely removed the lines from the power pole to his house. The power company sued him saying he must be connected to the grid and the use of any other source to provide power was illegal. He had to let them reconnect the power lines, but he refused to create an account. What were they going to do? Turn his power on knowing he would not pay? He did warn them that he would not be responsible for any feedback from his generators after they reconnected the lines. Eventually, the power company did something to ensure feedback could not occur. Then the man “trespassed” the company from stepping onto his property again.
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Most people don’t have batteries. Batteries are actually economically kinda stupid.
But go back and read my very long post. You can make “off-grid” solar work. You have to buy a special piece of equipment.
Also, you are correct that you could parallel your generator, though I would absolutely not recommend it for reasons that are absurdly technical.
Your entire discussion about Alabama is spot-on. It is actually the seed for this article. Cory just didn’t bother to read and jumped to some ridiculous conclusions. The “forcing people to have a power feed” is weird, but it doesn’t really explain the current issue. Even your discussion of the guy in Alabama had a lot of technical flaws.
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Maybe some technical flaws, but I write to 10th graders. My background is electronics/avionics so parallel and in series and mitigating feedback risks are in my sack of tricks. I find that trying to explain things too deeply loses people. Batteries are expensive and an ecological nightmare. Solar panels and generators are economically unreachable for most people. Perhaps one day they will be within the working man’s ability to justify the purchase. When I lived in FL, I had friends with gas hotwater, so I had a place to shower. I have slept in my car following hurricane power outages, and had a way to get more fuel when needed. (No comment on how or where, other than friends.) Since retirement, I live 90 miles inland, and do not have to worry about hurricanes quite so much. Though Irma did her best to turn out the lights a few times. I have standing reservations with a friend who has a generator for when the power is out over a prolonged period. Prolonged being when the 20 2-liter bottles of ice in the freezee and the battery operated fan are all exhausted. Hey! Quit laughing, I am back in AL! Deep woods ingenuity has its perks.
Hey! Hey! He’s a writer.
Not just that a Science Fiction writer! It has Science right in the name. /s
So in fairness, he doesn’t engineer anything all day long, except for words, by his own trade. I’ve seen some issues in the past related to Crypto and software engineering. Dunno if he got called out for it, usually I let it slide (esp. for Crypto since I just have passing familiarity for my day job). But yes, I too have noticed he needs to make some friends with deep domain knowledge so he can have them double check his posts/articles.
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People who repeat lies and fake news tend to piss me off
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Rightfully so. Even science writers at the major well-funded news sources have the same issues as evidenced here: It’s difficult to be a Science Writer who gets it right all the time without actually being a Scientist. It’s (near as I can tell) be a Journalist or Author and Scientist or Engineer and maintain any decent standard of work in both professions simultaneously. It’s an issue I don’t think anyone has cracked yet for writing, broadly. Even Michael Crighton for all his millions made and best sellers was pretty abysmal in terms of scientific accuracy, even for the day.
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But this is just regurgitation of spam from Reddit that was getting a lot of flak even over on Reddit. Keep the same super misleading headline?
This is fake news 101
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OK, so it sounds like I’m playing apologist. I’m not.
I’m suggesting that there’s a larger issue. I applaud your setting straight the record. More people need to do this.
What I do recommend is tagging Cory in your posts where you call him out. I doubt he reads the comment threads unless he gets a notification. He does need to read what you have to say.
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I’ve seen that in a lot of intallation there are banks of 24V or 48V batteries, that are charged either from the mains or the solar panel. The emergency lights are run on DC. There are also special 24V lamps with E27 lamps.
http://www.lighting.philips.com/main/prof/conventional-lamps-and-tubes/incandescent-lamps/gls-specialties/standard-extra-low-voltage-a60/920021020517_EU/product
There are fridges, normally used in RV capable of running on 24V, So you have only to add a battery charger regulator and a 24V DC wiring in your house. I’ve seen this arrangement only where power is unreliable like in high mountains or in big workplaces where makes sense to have a central system for secondary power.
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Yep.
Same thing happens in Italy.
I have a hybrid system worked fine with Irma pic is during the power outage. So many solar experts that know nothing about it makes me laugh. Being connected to the grid is the law here in Florida but no law to have your mains switch off when you do not want power from them…
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The modern candle tax. YAAAAY.
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Actually, I don’t even think there is a rule that your solar has to be connected to the grid.
I have installed off-grid solar in Florida.
I believe the rule is that your domicile has to have a utility feed. You could still run an off-grid PV system.
@doctorow
See, there is a picture of solar working during Hurricane Irma.
This story is absolutely false. Would you please take it down and stop circulating this obvious falsehood?
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