Bill Brooks is instrumental in the process of coming up with material for the NEC for renewable energy systems, especially for solar, energy storage and interconnections. Although the 2023 NEC has not been finalized or published, this is as good of a preview as you can get for knowing what the future will bring. Many manufacturers, engineers, CEOs and other decisionmakers can make better informed decisions about the future, knowing what will be in the National Electrical Code.

Bill Brooks is on NEC Code Making Panel 4 (the alternative energy panel) and has been perhaps the most active member of the PV Industry Forum, which is where new material for the NEC for Solar PV, Energy Storage and Interconnections are made. Bill has been working on Codes and Standards for 34 years. Bill Brooks and Sean White also published the book PV and the NEC.

Some of the areas of the NEC that we cover in this podcast are:

NEC Article 100 Definitions. All definitions moving to article 100 (no more 690.2 definitions), Electronic Power Converter, Electronic Transformer, Inverter Definition, PV Hazard Control UL 3741, Rapid Shutdown, 690.4, 690.12, NEC 750 Energy Management Systems (EMS), NEC 705.13 Power Control Systems (PCS), Net-Metering 3.0 Protest, NEC 712 DC Microgrids removed from the NEC and you use 705, PV String Circuits (strings now in NEC for first time), PV Output Circuit removed, PV System Output Circuit, Recombiner (Bill is not fond of this term), Paralleling Circuits in Harnesses, First Solar Modules, 2023 NEC PV Source Circuits go into and out of DC Combiner, String Circuit is series only (not parallel), DC-to-DC Converter Circuit, Wild PV, PV System Disconnect, 690.15 reorganized, Locking Requirements, Ground Fault Protection, Ground Fault Detection and interruption (GFDI) term clarified (not to be confused with GFCI), 690.45 Equipment Grounding Conductors (EGC) includes DC and AC not having to increase size of EGC when upsizing current carrying conductor for voltage drop (now also applies to AC).

Quotes: Bill Brooks (soon to be famous quotes).

“When you see a change in the Code, it does not mean that the requirements change.”

“90% of changes in the Code are not changes in requirements”

“We will never make a Code that will be clear to everyone”

“Codes are using text to convey fairly complex concepts to the public”

“Energy Management Systems (EMS) was unified with other parts of the Code”

“NEC Code Making Panel 4 is referred to now as the alternative energy panel”

“They’re putting maintenance requirements into a construction code”

“We got PV string circuits into the NEC”

“SolarEdge can put 100 PV modules on a Circuit”

This is a recording of part of an NEC workshop at the Intersolar 2022 conference at the Long Beach California Convention Center in January 2022.

The workshop was titled:

Energy Storage, PV and the NEC.

Note: This podcast was recorded on an iPhone 13 and to my surprise the recording quality was way better than expected, so we decided to podcast it!

WARNING: Bill Brooks and Sean White sometimes think they are funny. If you disagree with this and do not like dad jokes, do not listen to this podcast.