NTEU CHAPTER 280 - U.S.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
BEN FRANKLIN STATION, BOX 7672, WASHINGTON D.C. 20044 - PHONE 202-566-2788
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http://www.nteu280.org
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Murphy.JamesJ@epa.gov
DESCRIPTION NEWSLETTER CURRENT ISSUES PRESS RELEASES LINKS MEMBERS PAGE HISTORY SITE INDEX
Inside The Fishbowl
Official Newsletter of NTEU 280
February
2007 Volume
22 - Number 9
PRESIDENT Bill Evans (202)566-2789
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Dwight Welch (202)566-2787
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Diane Lynne (202)566-2786
CHIEF STEWARD Rosezella Canty-Letsome (202)566-2784
Bill Hirzy (202)566-2788
Anne-Marie Pastorkovich (202)343-9623
Diane Rains (410)305-2908
Dr. Freshteh Toghrol (410)305-2755
SECRETARY Jeff Beaubier, Ph.D. (202)564-7642
TREASURER Dr. Bernard Schneider (703)305-5555
EDITOR Diane Lynne (202)566-2786
MAIN UNION NUMBER (202) 566-2785
UNION FAX NUMBER (202) 566-1460
NTEU Chapter 280 Website: www.nteu280.org
NTEU National Website: www.nteu.org
Link
to NTEU Membership Form: https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf1187.pdf
Table of
Contents
*1. State of the
*2. Library Closings
* 3. Laboratory
Closings
* 4. OMB
Risk Assessment Bulletin
*5. Competency Assessments
*6. Ask the Lawyer Column: Guest Columnist
Tom Passman, Esq. , Employment Law Expert
*7. X-BYTES – A Column by Dwight Welch, NTEU
Chapter 280 Exec.V.P.:
- Manager Plus or Minus
- Adventures in Alternative Energy Part 2, Building an Emergency
*8. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” to
Highlight
Pesticide Testing on Humans on
PARS Update – Did you read the Fishbowl special PARS
Edition that was e-mailed on
Let us know your
experiences with PARs (good and bad) so we can develop Qs and As to assist our members with PARS issues.
1. State
of the
You Belong to a Powerful Group! NTEU won a
vote to represent 30,000 workers in Customs and Border Protection. What does
that mean for you at EPA? Well, according to The Washington Post’s Federal
Diary Columnist, Stephen Barr in his January 19, 2007 column, “ Bush administration officials have closely
followed the election battle because the union that is certified as the winner
will gain a larger voice in workplace issues and perhaps even policy debates on
Capitol Hill.” The more powerful NTEU becomes (by increased membership) the
more influence they have with Congress and the Administration in protecting
your rights and influencing your benefits. NTEU’s agenda for you appears below:
Statement of NTEU
President Colleen Kelley On State of the Union Address
As the president
prepares to deliver his State of the Union address tonight, I would urge him to
consider the state of our nation’s federal workforce. These 1.8 million
dedicated federal employees contribute a great deal to the strength of our
country and the ability of the federal government to deliver needed services to
our citizens. Yet this administration has continuously shown a disregard for
their contributions. The fact is that morale is dangerously low among employees
in all federal agencies including those who work at the front lines of our
homeland security, those who protect our food and drugs, those who guard our
nation’s financial industries, and those who collect our country’s revenues.
That is not surprising, of course, in the wake of continuing administration
efforts to turn federal jobs over to the private sector; attempts to strip
federal employees of many of their vital civil service rights; the
unwillingness, year after year, to provide federal agencies with adequate
resources or workers with a fair pay raise. These actions reverberate far
beyond the federal workforce and hurt our country. Clearly, the state of our
nation would improve significantly if federal employees received the respect
they earn every day by their performance—and if their agencies were
appropriately funded so they could accomplish their missions of service to the
public.
TOP TEN Federal Places to Work
According to the January 31, 2007
What does it take for
EPA to get on the list? Let me know your
thoughts on what detracts from your job satisfaction at EPA and we can present
a list to management at one of our labor–management partnership meetings.
2. Library
Closings
Go to the link below to read the Seattle Post
Intelligencer’s
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/300615_epalibraries22.html
“Any
documents that have not been authored by or for EPA staff members can’t be
digitized or placed online, because such a move would violate copyright laws,
according to Linda Travers, the acting assistant
administrator for EPA’s Office of Environmental Information, which is handling
the library closures. These documents include one-of-a-kind reports authored by
contractors and the recipients of EPA grants, says Dotty Biggs, a retired EPA
librarian. In addition, EPA’s plan does not include digitization of documents
generated by states, local governments, and tribes—all of which is
irreplaceable material that will no longer be accessible, she says.” This is
one of the troubling conclusions in an article for
Environmental Science & Technology magazine entitled “Scientists protest
U.S. EPA library closures.” The article
was posted
Environmental Science & Technology magazine (http://pubs.acs.org/est) is a peer-reviewed
journal published in
3.
Lab Closings
NTEU is fighting lab closures at FDA and
is working with EPA to prevent lab closures.
NTEU Calls FDA Plan to Close Labs
‘Short-sighted’
NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley sharply criticized a
proposal by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consolidate its 13
regional laboratories where scientists and researchers perform duties critical
to the safety of food, drugs and medical devices.
According to preliminary information, FDA’s Office of
Regulatory Affairs (ORA) plans to close between seven and nine
laboratories—more than half of the current facilities, leaving only four to six
labs. The FDA intends to release a final list of lab closures in April once a
workgroup completes its analysis.
NTEU responded to the information
by immediately issuing a message to employees and by teaming up with Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to raise public awareness of
the negative impact of the plan. In a Dec. 21 press release, NTEU warned that
the proposed restructuring would reduce FDA’s ability to act quickly in
emergency situations and result in the loss of highly-skilled employees who
choose to leave the government rather than take involuntary reassignments. To
read NTEU’s press release, click
here or visit
www.nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=1000
4. OMB
Bulletin on Risk Assessment Called “Fundamentally Flawed”
Thanks to Alisha Prather, House Committee on Science and Technology, for granting us permission to reprint this:
For Immediate Release
Contact: Alisha Prather, 202.225.6375
Chairmen Agree - OMB Bulletin "Fundamentally
Flawed"
(
The four Chairmen urged the NAS to either expand the scope
of their review to address policy and funding issues in addition to the
scientific issues raised by the Bulletin - or to clearly define the scope of
their review.
On the basis of their scientific review, the NAS committee
concluded unanimously today that the OMB Bulletin is "fundamentally
flawed" and the committee recommended that OMB withdraw the Bulletin.
Chairmen offered comment today on the NAS report issued
by the National Research Council:
"OMB overstepped its authority and expertise by issuing
this Bulletin. Congress has repeatedly
rejected one-size-fits all approaches to developing scientific and technical
information and now it has been rejected by the experts at NAS as well. OMB should withdraw this Bulletin promptly
and abandon its attempts to micromanage agencies' work," said Chairman
Gordon.
"OMB should follow NAS's recommendation and abandon its
costly requirement for superfluous analysis that ignores the specific statutory
directives Congress gave the agencies," said Chairman Dingell.
"This White House initiative jeopardizes the agencies'
ability to develop science-based policies that protect human health and the
environment. The
Also commenting on the matter,
Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials
Chairman Albert Wynn (D-MD) said, "I am deeply troubled by the
affect that OMB's proposed risk assessment analysis would have on our most
vulnerable and disadvantaged constituents.
I agree with the NAS's assessment that the OMB's proposed changes to
risk assessment analysis would enable agencies like the Environmental
Protection Agency to ignore the needs of certain segments of the population
such as infants, children, the elderly, low income and
minority communities. These are the
communities most affected by hazardous waste and disposal issues and these are
the communities that need the safeguards of environmental laws the most. We must ensure that they receive all the
protection they are entitled to under the law."
Read the
That press release said in part: "We
began our review of the draft bulletin thinking we would only be recommending
changes, but the more we dug into it, the more we realized that from a
scientific and technical standpoint, it should be withdrawn altogether,"
said John F. Ahearne, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and
director, ethics program, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Research
Triangle Park, N.C.
The committee agreed
with OMB that there is room for improvement in federal risk assessments and
that additional guidance would help. However, it concluded that the
bulletin would not accomplish its stated goal of enhancing the technical
quality and objectivity of federal risk assessments. OMB should instead
issue a different type of bulletin that outlines goals and general principles
for risk assessments, but that directs federal agencies to develop their own
technical guidelines to meet those goals and principles. "The new bulletin
should draw on the risk assessment expertise that exists in federal agencies and the organizations that
advise them," Ahearne said.
5. Competency Assessments for
On
National NTEU negotiator, Rick Bialczak has drafted the
following agreement between the EPA and NTEU on the Competency Assessment Tool,
which was not signed as of
1) Employee and supervisor survey entries will be and will remain anonymous, and the Agency will not maintain any means by which to link such survey entries to the employee or supervisor.
2) Employee and supervisor survey entries will not be used for any purpose other than an evaluation of human resource needs. In particular, the CAT entries and results will not be used in connection with individual employee evaluations, Performance Assessment Recognition System (PARS), employee awards, or RIFs.
3) Employee participation is voluntary, and the Agency track of individual employee participation only for the purpose of reminding employees of the survey to ensure a useful pool of data.
4) The Agency will provide NTEU with data derived as a result of the survey.
5) The Agency will share the Mass Mailer describing CAT prior to distribution, and consider comments from NTEU.
6) This agreement covers the nineteen occupation covered by attached Exhibit A.
From OARM’s Q & A : The U.S. Office of Personnel Management
(OPM) defines a competency as a measurable pattern of skills, knowledge,
abilities, behaviors and other characteristics that an individual needs to
perform work roles or occupational functions successfully. Competency assessments are one of the many
strategic workforce planning activities the Agency is using to determine the
current status and future needs of its workforce. The purpose of a competency
assessment is to determine whether the Agency’s workforce possesses the
critical skills and behaviors to successfully accomplish its future mission
goals and objectives. To make these
determinations, the Agency will focus its review and analysis of the aggregate
data on each group of employees surveyed, not the individuals surveyed. The Agency will be using an online competency
assessment tool to conduct the competency survey.
.
Exhibit A
|
# |
EPA
Mission Critical Occupations |
Occupation Series |
|
|
Cross-cutting
MCO: Leaders |
|
|
1 |
|
|
|
|
Scientist: |
|
|
2 |
Toxicologists |
0415 |
|
3 |
Geneticist |
0440 |
|
4 |
Ecologists |
0408 |
|
5 |
Biologists |
0401 |
|
6 |
Economists |
0110 |
|
7 |
Chemists |
1320 |
|
8 |
Physical Scientists |
1301 |
|
9 |
Health Scientists |
0601 |
|
10 |
Environmental Engineers/Mechanical Engineers |
0819/0830 |
|
11 |
Attorneys |
0905 |
|
|
Program and
Management Support: |
|
|
12 |
Information Technology |
0334/2210 |
|
13 |
Environmental Protection Specialist |
0028 |
|
14 |
Human Resources Specialists |
0201 |
|
15 |
Public Affairs /Information Specialists (includes Program/Admin. Specialists) |
0301/0340/ 0343/1035 |
|
|
Financial Resource
Management: |
|
|
16 |
Grants Specialists |
1101 |
|
17 |
Accountants/Auditors |
0510/0511 |
|
18 |
Financial Specialists |
0501 |
|
19 |
Contract Specialists |
1102 |
6. Ask
the Employment Lawyer
Q. There
currently appears to be a trend at EPA where senior managers are creating a
hostile work environment via disparate treatment of older workers and workers
in ill health. It appears these workers
are being singled out and treated more severely because of absences and lowered
performance because of their chronic and/or long term illnesses. The net result is dismissal or forced
disability retirement. Most, if not all,
of these workers are over 50 and have more than 20 years service.
How do we successfully combat
this negative trend?
A. It would be very
difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a class action for disabled,older employees as each employee has unique physical and
mental characteristics. Also,
disciplinary and adverse actions are usually not easily susceptible to class
treatment because each adverse action has a different set of facts. While there
have been class actions based on race discrimination challenging the
disproportionate percentage of such actions brought against minorities, you
would first have to do a statistical analysis of the disciplinary and adverse
actions taken to determine whether they had a disproportionate impact on older
employees. I doubt if such an analysis could also be done for "workers in
ill health" as this term is not recognized under the Americans with
Disabilities and the Rehabilitation Acts, only employees who are suffering from
physical and/or mental handicaps which are defined in the EEOC regulations. See
29 CFR Part 1630.
A better approach would be to take meritorious cases through
the grievance-arbitration process in an effort to establish a pattern and
practice of a hostile work environment against older workers and workers in ill
health. Handicapped employees should
request reasonable accommodations for their disabilities, and if denied, they should
grieve, not seek disability retirement which should be a last resort only if
the employees cannot be reasonable accommodated. While federal employees can
also use the EEO process in lieu of the negotiated grievance-arbitration
procedure, the latter is likely to be more expeditious and get management's
attention if the
Another option would be to strengthen the collective
bargaining agreement to provide more protections for older and disabled
employees, spelling out the reasonable accommodations which are available when
necessary. While there are no easy answers to the issue posed which is not
unusual as employers often seek to force out employees who are eligible for
retirement, the approaches outlined may help bring about a change in the work
environment. Tom Passman, Esq.,
We’ve corralled some of the top employment lawyers in town to participate in our new feature: Ask the Employment Lawyer. Send me your employment questions. Do you think you are a victim of discrimination in your office? Do you have questions about the EEO process or want information on mediation options? Have you received a reprimand? These guys charge big bucks, but will provide generic answers for free. E-mail your question to Lynne.Diane@EPA.GOV with the subject line: “Ask the Lawyer” or use the interoffice mail and direct your question to Diane Lynne UN-200-T. Your name and office will not be put in the newsletter. We may not be able to address all the questions, but we will try.
7. X-BYTES A Column by Dwight Welch, Executive Vice
President
MANAGERS PLUS OR
MINUS – THE
The EPA responses to budgeting priorities and political pressures have resulted in the closing the libraries and the threat of lab closures. In addition, the PARS agreement has left many of us wondering how we’ll fare under this new system.
MANAGER PLUS
We did have a Manager Plus this month, however, perhaps fearing retaliation, he asked us not to run an article on him.
MANAGERS MINUS
Luis Luna, Assistant Administrator, OARM -
By now all of you have read the all employee memo from Assistant Administrator Luis Luna telling us that our new “green building,” Potomac Yards (PY) is wonderful. Included in the memo was a discussion of how indoor air monitoring concluded that there were no problems in PY. Those of us who are old-timers in OPP may remember that the air monitoring in Crystal Mall 2 after the asbestos remediation fiasco also told us the air was “safe.” But the union’s collection of 24 samples of dust taken throughout the building revealed that, if CM-2 had been a school, it would have been shut down immediately. We were let down by EPA, GSA, OSHA, local and state health officials, so what confidence do we have now?
The plain fact is that PY is a “green building” sitting atop a “brown field.” The union received the remediation plan that it requested. The union had a number of issues with the remediation plan which have never been addressed. The ground upon which PY is situated was polluted with a variety of known and suspected human carcinogens. These pollutants included PCBs, asbestos, arsenic, lead, and other metals. The remediation plan called for heating the soil in the site to drive off the pollutants. While this might work for volatile contaminants such as PCBs, it would have little effect on things like arsenic, asbestos, and lead.
The principle objection that the union has to the “remediation plan” is that there were no core samples taken. A thirty foot column of soil needed to be extracted and analyzed, but this was never done or at least was not evidenced in the “remediation plan.” I have voiced this concern, conducting a core sample, in order to give employees peace of mind, but have been refused. I brought this concern all the way to Luis Luna who refused even to discuss it.
Another serious concern with the “remediation plan” is that the levels of arsenic in the report were all blacked out. How high were the arsenic levels? We have no idea. Why were these figures blacked out? We have no idea. This makes me feel secure and trusting, how about you?
Luis Luna is a good listener, but on many occasions, such as this, he falls quite a bit short. If Mr. Luna is sincere that he cares about the health and well being of the employees at PY, he would find a way to get those core samples done and well as enquiring into why those arsenic figures were blacked out of the official report..
Melissa Hatfield, Mike Hamlin - Labor Relations - Suppressing Exculpatory/Mitigating Information in a Disciplinary Action
Union officials should not take vacations around the
Christmas holiday season; this is when some managers do their most evil
work. Currently, the Agency is trying to
take a severe adverse action against an employee. While I cannot talk about the case at this
juncture, I can talk about the information request that this union submitted in
connection with this case. The union
requested certain exculpatory information in support of the employee’s case,
but the
Ms. Hatfield’s reply denied the request on several
bases. The first was that the
But the second “reason” for denying the request really takes the prize. Quoting Ms. Hatfield, “Second, all the documents relied upon by the proposing official in making his recommendation to suspend.....were included as attachments to the ‘Notice of Proposed 14 Day Suspension.’” Holy Bill of Rights, Melissa, the requested documents were exculpatory communications, communications which might disprove and/or mitigate the charges against the employee. Of course management did not consider this information, if they had, they may not have been proposing their 14 day suspension.
The third basis for denial was that the full disclosure of facts we sought was protected by “attorney-client privilege.” Holy coverup Melissa, obviously management does not operate as if it lived “inside a fishbowl” (to quote our greatest Administrator Bill Ruckleshaus.)
I filed a grievance with Ms. Hatfield’s boss asking for the withheld information. Mike Hamlin called me and asked if he could answer Step 1 or did I want to keep it at Step 2 with Ken Venuto. Being a nice guy, I granted him an after the fact extension but it was a waste of time. The response was another denial to our very reasonable request to obtain the full investigatory report in the matter as well as all of the affidavits, rather than the cherry-picked version that management relied upon in their suspension decision. I’ve now sent it to Ken Venuto for Step 2.
All of us are pleased to hear that Ms. Hatfield received a bronze medal for superior service in 2006. Obviously, labor- management PARTNERSHIP was not a criteria. Think how much more we could accomplish for the betterment of EPA professionals if we weren’t wrangling over common-sense issues, like sharing an entire investigative report when an adverse action for an employee hangs in the balance.
Jim Gulliford - Assistant
Administrator for OPPTS - Non Scientists Should Not Make Science Decisions
Way back when I was President, as well as the newly (union)
elected National Partnership Council Co-Chair, I sent an e-mail to Mr.
Gulliford suggesting an introductory meeting.
This e-mail was ignored. It was
only when I wrote to Administrator Johnson, that a meeting was finally
arranged.
Months later Mr. Gulliford met with NTEU 280 President Bill Evans, Chief Steward Rosezella Canty-Letsome, and myself. Unlike our get acquainted meetings with other new Assistant Administrators, the meeting with Mr. Gulliford was contentious and hostile. While a blow by blow description is not warranted here, suffice it to note that the three NTEU 280 reps complained about the treatment of scientists, including the fact that it was generally the less educated and the non-scientists who were promoted into management. Mr. Gulliford admitted with some apparent pride, that he too, was a non-scientist. He did not think it important that managers actually understood science. EPA’s War on Science apparently has another ally.
ORD Management - With the Unions Tied Up in an ORD Meeting, Assistant Administrator Meets with Employees without Union Representation
On December 13th, ORD simultaneously conducted two operations in EPA’s War on Science. The Office of Research and Development is one of the last bastions of science (as opposed to clerical science) left in the EPA. Operation one was an all day meeting of the ORD Partnership Council to discuss outsourcing administrative, clerical, and IT positions. Operation two was a “skip level” meeting between employees and the Assistant Administrator WITHOUT UNION INVOLVEMENT OR NOTIFICATION.
Since the issues of the all-day outsourcing meeting concerns mostly the HQ AFGE union, Local 3331, I will leave comment up to them except to indicate that I defended the NTEU-EPA Collective Bargaining Agreement with regard to career ladder promotions.
However it is the activity of the Assistant Administrator, George Gray which most concerns me. In at least one office under ORD, there is a plan afoot, a reorganization, to make it easier for non-scientists to get into positions of power and influence while keeping the scientists back. NTEU 280 intends to fight the continued War Against Science (and scientists) by supporting the reorg option which will not undermine scientists against the option that does. More specifics about this in the next issue of INSIDE THE FISHBOWL.
With most of the Union “big guns” distracted by the all day outsourcing meeting, employees met with the Assistant Administrator without union representation. While their other program management was absent from this meeting, the management favorites are likely to report back on employee comments.
Maybe after this article, Dr. Gray will meet with the union. Hopefully, he is at least a scientist.
MANAGER PLUS AND MINUS - Ken Venuto - No Union Involvement on PARS Change
The ink was barely dry on the PARS agreements with the various unions, and now management intends to implement a unilateral change. In the NTEU PARS agreement (and I assume most other unions also), PARS was de-linked from awards. But now under the President’s Management Agenda, EPA must march lock step with all of the other agencies and re-link them. OK, no big deal it’s getting more and more like the old 5 tier system. At the last conference call between the Unions and EPA management, management indicated that in their effort to reconfigure PARS to re-link awards, they would be contacting other agencies for input. When I asked if the Unions would have any pre-decisional input, Mr. Venuto, the new Office of Human Resources Director, answered a flat, “No.” In an agency which is allegedly practicing partnership, the Unions should have some involvement in this process. So for this reason, we give Ken Venuto a Manager Minus. However, we appreciate Mr. Venuto’s honesty. For years now, the Agency has been preaching partnership, but on every issue, People Minus, DFAS, PARS, etc. the Agency has implemented first and negotiated later as either an afterthought or when the Unions filed against them. This is not how partnership is supposed to work, and it doesn’t even make the grade for traditional Impact and Implementation bargaining. So we have to give Mr. Venuto a Manager Plus for being the first manager to be honest with us on the subject of partnership.
Adventures in Alternative Energy Part 2,
Building an Emergency
In contemplating this series of articles, I originally
planned that Part 2 discuss my building of a solar electric generating system. However, the subject is too complex to
present in 5 or 6 pages. Also, do I
start from the solar panels inward, or from the batteries outward. In first discussing building an emergency
battery backup system, if one is on limited funds, this system can be built and
solar panels and appropriate controls added later. While the solar panels, without a system to
convert the electricity produced into useful power, is practically worthless,
the battery backup system can be utilized immediately to provide power to a
home in the event of power failures. You
can then add on solar panels later. (I
started with 8 panels, then increased them to 10, then 15. I started with 8 batteries, later increased
to 16, now 24. The latter turned out to
be a mistake regarding solar electric systems.)
A Word on Equipment Retailers
Again I endorse no particular products or retailers, I am
simply relating my real life experiences in the subject of solar energy. First I surfed the web, a really scary
place. I immediately eliminated
companies that install systems, since I was doing it myself. I narrowed it down to three companies with
Better Business Bureau ratings (or similar).
These companies are Solatron Technologies (http://www21.overture.com/d/sr/?xargs=15KPjg1ghSlJXyl%5FruNLbXU6TFhUBMxd%5FwsZQwTMAlSssNry9yR5MnLa7AmsB9Rehv6Q7ZxeTM8aAVKPL7mo2J, www.partsonsale.com/d/search/additionalListing.jhtml?mkt=us&lang=en_US),
The Alternative Energy Store (http://home.altenergystore.com,)
http://rc10.overture.com/d/sr/?xargs=15KPjg1glSqJauwuz1IPXeHbGPx1wElp%2D99rgfCuJ8Hada82Q8Au1%5FPpPxt8R4O%2DUU533UuPPh6vgbK%5Fflnand
Northern Arizona Wind & Sun (www.solar-electric.com). /d/search/additionalListing.jhtml?mkt=us&lang=en_US
Solatron has a great website, packed full of useful
information including information about solar scams such as “bait and
switch.” I eliminated them when I called
and they pulled a bait and switch on me.
(Didn’t have the solar panels advertised and wanted to sell me something
else instead, but then refused to switch out the different rack I wanted.) I made my first purchase from Northern
Arizona Wind & Sun where I purchased most of my equipment because they had
the best price at the time, and then bought my batteries from The Alternative
Energy Store. I found a friendly
salesman at AES, Ben Farmer, who gives me competitive prices in addition to a
10% discount since I’ve purchased more than $10K from them, so I got all of my
addition equipment from them.
Generally the sales people from most sites (except Ben) are
rude and act as if they don’t want to sell you anything. None of the sales people have a really good
technical grasp and you must consult other sites to get really good technical
information. (Solartron has the best
technical information of a retail sales website.) Many sites mention the “world wide shortage”
of solar panels. And this is probably
true. As a rule of thumb, solar panels
are easier to get in the winter when there is less sun, and wind-electric
turbines easier to get in the summer when there is less wind. Other products are readily available.
An Overview of my System Components
15 Kyocera 125W panels, one Outback VFX 3648 (3600 watts, 48
volts) power panel (inverter, charger,
breaker boxes), one Outback MX 60 Solar Charger, one outback Mate (optional,
NOT, controls and monitors system), one Outback collection box (outside strings
of solar panels attached to breakers in box), Two Seas solar panel racks,
wiring, battery temperature monitor, lightning arrestors and miscellaneous.
Step One - Chose a System Voltage
In part one of this series (See INSIDE THE FISHBOWL December
2006), I discussed the necessity of first determining what you need to
run. If its something small, such as a
single computer, then you should purchase a pre-made system (available at The
Alternative Energy Store). However, if
you are running a group of core appliances such as refrigerator, well-pump, TV,
you need to build or buy a more substantial system. Systems in the
For those of you who understand Ohm’s Law, you already know
why. For those who don’t it works like
this. The higher the voltage the more
efficient the transmission of electricity (less is lost as heat.) So for instance with 10 amp wire, you can put
120 watts of 12V, 240 watts of 24V, and 480 watts of 48V with equal
efficiency. Putting 120 watts of 48V
through 10 amp wire will save you a lot in electrical loses when compared with
12V and 24V. I recommend wiring a size
or two larger than what is called for in order to conserve waste energy. But wire is cheap, the real savings come
later with regard to expensive components which I will get into in Part 3 of
this series.
Some companies, such as the local Banner Power will build a
battery backup system for you. I went to
their website, but they didn’t give prices.
I suspect you can build the same thing much cheaper, even if you hire an
electrician to do it.
Building an Emergency Backup System
The Power Panel (Inverter, Charger, and Circuit Boxes)
Unless you are only running lights and/or resistance heaters
(no fan) and/or running special RV type appliances, you must convert the DC
current (created by solar panels and/or stored in batteries) to 120/240 volt
AC. So at the heart of any backup or alternative
energy system is the inverter which will convert 12, 24, or 48 volt DC into
120/240 volt AC. The charger, necessary
for non-solar grid powered backup systems is necessary to keep your batteries
charged. (It is also a convenient option
with solar powered systems as I explained in part one of this series.) The circuit boxes control your AC on one side
and the DC on the other side. You can
save yourself, as I did, about $400 or $500 by building the power panel
yourself from components. Unless you are
a master electrician, I would recommend against it. Indeed, even if you are I would recommend
against it. With a pre-made power panel,
there are only a few quick connections, AC on one side, DC on the other
side. By assembling the power panel from
components, it will take you all day or longer.
So even if you have hired an electrician to do the work, you will save a
ton of money by buying the preassembled panel; the electrician’s hourly wage
will greatly exceed the $400 or $500 saved.
The only advantage to having wired it myself, I found, was that now I
completely understand it.
I bought the Outback 3648, (3600 watts, 48 volts), but other
brands may be just as good. Outback, I
have found has stellar technical service and warrantee. I zapped my outback controller twice with
static electricity and they replaced it both times.
The Inverter
This is a complex subject, there are many types to chose
from. But first a discussion of direct
current (DC) vs alternating current (AC).
Graphing a DC current on a chart, you will have one straight line (at
say) 120 volts DC. However, graphing
power company created 120 volt AC you will see a sinwave. (Looks like a “S” on its side.) The power will go from 0 to 120 volts
positive, back down to 0, then to 120 volts negative and then back to 0. This happen 60 times a second! A light bulb run on household current blinks
on and off 60 times a second but you don’t see it because the human eye cannot
distinguish blinks faster than about 20 times a second. (A movie film uses 24 frames per second and
you see it as a smooth motion and not a succession of frames.)
Now let’s examine a hypothetical 120 V generator and a 120 V
motor. (Home generators are normally 240
V splitting the current into 2 - 120 volt sides.) The generator (alternator) and motor are
mechanically alike, except for the circuitry and function. The generator turns mechanical energy into
electrical energy, the motor turn electrical energy back into mechanical
energy. Here’s how they work. Both have a coil on an iron or steel bar
spinning within a field of permanent magnets.
In the generator as the coil approaches the magnet, the voltage goes up,
as it recedes, the voltage goes down. In
the motor, the coil becomes an electromagnet.
First it is attracted to the magnet when at 120 V positive, then
repelled by the magnet when it becomes 120 V negative. Indeed, if you unplug, a fan, turn the switch
on, spin the blades with your finger, you will find, if tested with a volt
meter, that it will generate AC electricity.
An ungeared motor will spin at 3600 rpm as does the generator.
Two Types of Inverters
There are two basic types of inverters: modified sinwave and
true sinwave. The former is smaller,
lighter, and less expensive. The latter
is larger, heavier and more expensive.
But they are like incandescent vs. flourescent bulbs. The true sinwave will pay for itself by
lasting longer and being more durable.
The modified sinwave uses electronics to alternate the DC into AC, the
true sinwave inverter uses a heavy coil of copper wire. If the modified takes too big a load, it
fries or, at best, trips a breaker; the true sinwave can tolerate larger
surges. Indeed, my Outback 3600 watt can
withstand a 5 second 7200 watt surge and a 20-30 minute 5,000 watt load.
The surge wattage is important. An appliance with let’s say a 5 amp (600W)
operating load may use 10 amps (1200W) upon start-up. This is because the motor must overcome
inertia. It takes more power to get it
moving than to keep it moving. Let us
say you are running nearly 3600 watts on a 3600 watt inverter. In the event of a power failure, or let’s say
you are starting up a system in a remote cabin, a surge created by all the
appliances shifting over at one time might fry the modified inverter or trip
the main breaker. You would then have to
shut down all circuits, reset the main breaker, then turn on one circuit at a
time. With the true sinwave inverter,
you are good to go.
But the big difference comes in terms of performance and
wear and tear on appliances. Relating
back to the discussion of the electric company’s sinwave supplied power, the
true sinwave inverter produces a rising then falling voltage similar to (in
some cases BETTER than) the utility company.
However if you chart the modified sinwave inverter on a graph you will
see, a dash at 120 volts positive, and a dash at 120 volts negative. The modified inverter changes voltage from
one extreme to another and back, 60 times a second. This modified sinwave will run a motor, but
it is like running a high performance engine on low octane gas. The motor will run considerably more noisy on
the modified sinwave inverter. (On one
web site they compare the sound of the same refrigerator being run on true v.
modified sinwave. When run by the
modified sinwave inverter, the refrigerator runs considerably more noisy. Field reports also indicate that the life of
the motor may be cut down by as much as 40 or 50%. If you are running an appliance all or most
of the time off of an inverter, pure sinwave will save you money in the long
run. With TVs and monitors, the modified
sinwave will create a lot of video “noise” and some electronics such as some
computer printers will not run at all.
Vented vs. Unvented
Unless you are in an extremely dusty or salty environment,
you want vented. Vented inverters can
produce more power for the same investment.
My Outback 3600 watt in the vented version only produces 3,000 watts in
the unvented version.
Grid-Tie vs.
Since I was building a backup system, I chose the Battery
System option. In a grid-tie system, the
produced AC current directly into the grid, however, if the grid is down, you
are without power. However, some
grid-tie inverters can be used for both.
It charges batteries first, but when the batteries are charged, the
excess, not being used, is fed into the grid.
There are other ways in which to utilize excess solar or wind power
which I will discuss in Part 3. The
Outback VFX 3648 can also be programmed to run a generator at certain times or
to use the grid when power is cheap and to run off of the battery bank when
kilowatt hours are more expensive. (They
have peak and off peak hours in
The Charger
The charger, to power up your batteries after the power
failure is over is a necessity in a backup only system, but is also recommended
even when your battery charging is done by the sun. With some Power Panels, (e.g. Xantrex) the
charger must be ordered separately. With
others like Outback, the charger is included.
The Breaker Boxes
Here is where the power panel pays off. The circuits are preconfigured. The only decisions you have to make are the
sizes and numbers of AC breakers. So you
may wish to have one large breaker and then use a store bought circuit breaker
box for your branch circuits. This is
what I did. When my system was set up, I
merely had to switch my grid circuits to the alternative energy circuits. You can also set up the AC box to handle
branch circuits instead. The Outback
breakers were more expensive than the GE ones (which I already had anyway) so I
went with the first option.
The Battery Bank
You can never have too many batteries. More batteries means more reserve power. But what kind of batteries to buy? First off, don’t use car batteries. These batteries have thin lead plates and are
meant to supply high peak amperage but won’t last up under many heavy
discharges. You must use storage
batteries, such as marine batteries. The
storage batteries can’t handle as high a peak, but can take prolonged
discharge. The lead plates are much
thicker. But even with storage batteries
you should not discharge below 50% too often.
More on this in “How Many Batteries Do You Need?” below.
Storage batteries come in three types, liquid, AGM (Acid
Glass Mat), and gel. The latter are the
so-called “maintenance free” batteries.
They have their pluses and minuses.
All are lead-acid.
The liquid type is most familiar. It’s advantages are they are the cheapest and
can tolerate an overcharge; you can potentially store more power in them than
the other types. The disadvantages are
you must check and refill the liquid (use distilled water) every month or so. More often if you routinely overcharge
them. The liquid batteries can produce
extremely flammable hydrogen and provisions must be made to vent the hydrogen
to prevent accidental explosions. If
knocked over, the acid will leak out and cause damage as well as ruin the
battery (though you can purchase fresh acid.)
The liquid batteries must routinely be overcharged to synchronize the
voltages as well as to remove sulfation.
Sulfation is the deposit of lead sulfate on the battery plates. If not routinely equalized, the sulfation
will make the battery useless.
In the AGM battery, the acid is soaked in fiberglass mats between the plates; in the gel batteries, the acid is in gel form. Both types have essentially similar properties except gel batteries cost a bit more, and can’t be charged quite as high voltage-wise as the AGM. I went with AGM. The AGM and gel cost more, but last twice as long. 5-7 years for liquid as opposed to 10-15 years for AGM and gel. The AGM and gel don’t require any maintenance. No adding electrolyte, no equalizing to remove sulfation. If knocked on their side, they will not leak. (Indeed, the batteries can be used on their side or even under 30 feet of water.) They don’t vent hydrogen gas, but here’s the big negative–