Family PV power plant on Drenova

Initial requirements

The idea of investing in a family power plant on Drenova is of course to achieve as much energy autonomy as possible. The property is heated on pellets and the owners own two electric cars: Renault Twingo ZE i Renault Captur 1.6 E-Tech Plug-in Hybrid 160 Intens. Therefore, the planned PV power plant power 8.5 kW slightly higher capacity, and special emphasis was on the possibility of future upgrades with an eye battery 10 kWh that would ensure autonomy for a day or two, so it was selected Suitable power hybrid inverter. An investment in the battery is planned for the coming year.

Based on the experience of other investors, we expected a lengthy paperwork process: That's how it happened. The reason for part of the problem was the requirement for the power plant to power two OMMs (the family house has two apartments with separate meters). HEP currently has no solution for this case, except to carry out the unification of meters (although according to the Act, the category Active Consumer, but this is not implemented in their systems). And here comes the problem of sequential access, waiting in every step, etc.

Activity timeline

On a family house with two floors (ground floor and first floor) it is planned to install a photovoltaic power plant that would supply energy to the entire building. The apartments are separated and each has its own meter (thus and OMM - Accounting Measurement Place). All common appliances are also connected to the apartment on the ground floor - equipment in garages, boiler room for central heating, taverns and outdoor garden facilities. The initial idea was to connect the photovoltaic power plant to one of the OMMs according to the current HEP procedure, and the other OMM billing “join” as an energy user.

Legal (in the introduction to mention Electricity Market Act) this area is clearly defined through form the ACTIVITIAL BUYER, and defines the obligation System Operator:

Active customer is a final customer, or a group of jointly acting final customers, who consumes or stores electricity generated within its own premises located within defined limits or who sells self-generated electricity or participates in flexibility provision or energy efficiency schemes, provided that those activities do not constitute its primary commercial or professional activity;

Article 3 Paragraph 5

End-customer group jointly referred to in paragraph 1 of Article 25 shall be the metering points of final customers in the same multi-apartment building and/or business premises to which the generating or energy storage facility is connected through the metering point; an individual final customer, a collective consumption metering point or through a dedicated metering point for a generating or energy storage facility.

Article 25 Paragraph 4

The system operator shall enable the group of jointly acting final customers referred to in paragraph 1 of Article 25 and measurement data users; metering data of the metering point of an individual final customer, a collective consumption metering point or a specific metering point for a generating or energy storage installation, necessary to account for electricity taken from the grid or for electricity fed into the grid; depending on the arrangement of use of the production facility i.e. energy storage facilities contracted between final customers acting jointly referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article.

Article 25 Paragraph 9

However, it turns out that the Active Buyer currently impossible to implement in practice because such types of unification and sharing are not supported by HEP's applications, regulations, implementing doluments, etc. (?!). However, it is even more problematic that the existing processes of HEP are completely sequentially arranged, and a good part of the necessary documentation is illogical and, in fact, – unnecessary! Therefore, there are two options, wait for the change of regulations and HEP applications (the deadlines for this operation are completely unclear) or follow the existing procedure.

Proces

According to the applicable HEP procedures, two solutions are possible for the observed case:

1. Unification of both OMMs into one new OMM, replacement of meters and installation of FNE of required power and
2. Retain separate OMMs, but install two separate FNEs to be connected to each OMM – two completely independent systems.  

The second variant implies unnecessary technical complexity and costs because for each OMM the same HEP procedure has to be followed (cost of replacing two existing meters, two inverters, more complicated installation in the facility, etc.). Finally, the first variant was chosen, but immediately at the beginning it was noticed that although the entire operation is started due to the installation of the FNE, such a unified "roof" process in HEP does not actually exist, but it all boils down to Sequential series of individual processes which all require practically the same data set Repeated from form to form, where, of course, there are also illogicalities even though the processes themselves are forms correctly explained on HEP's website.

OMM Problems

The first illogicality is that the unification of OMMs cannot be done. if the owners are different persons. This is a serious obstacle in the case of multi-apartment buildings where the owners of apartments are different, so the existing procedure for this case is unusable. In the observed case, it is a family, the owner of one OMM is the father and the other the son. Therefore, the first step is the procedure of transferring the OMM to the selected person. The process is sequential, so the next step can be taken only after the end of this activity (by submitting several forms at HEP's counter). The key part is the accompanying documents - the application for the issuance of electricity approval, statements of co-owners that they agree to change the relationship, evidence of ownership of the facility, cadastre extracts, etc., even though it is an OMM for which there are Fifty-Year-Old Historical data in HEP.

There is no specific process for ‘old’ and ‘new’ customers. The application requests the unification of the OMM, and the total required power of the new connection is slightly less than the total sum of the two OMMs, which is regulated by the issued electricity consent. But due to proedura (they say that the problem is applications), energy consent is released on the unified power, which will later create additional problems. A new Supply Contract is also being concluded – but given the strength of the Exceeding 22kW – automatically switches to the red tariff model (which is for the economy and of course means significantly higher prices). HEP employees claim that it is so procedurally complex and that only after unification can the OMM be given new power reduction requirement and back to the white model.

Switching OMMs takes a few days and now both OMMs are on the same person, so surrender can continue a new request to merge the OMM. But surprises don't end there. Only the ‘new’ OMM is active while the old one is ‘archived’, so no readings can be provided. There may be a problem if the process takes time because one meter is ‘inactive’. HEP solves this case by issuing a multiple-increased invoice for the archived meter and by making a final settlement later.

And this part did not go without problems because double invoices were issued for both OMMs of unusually large amounts, so this also required an additional visit to HEP's counter and explanations. An interesting fact is that the consent of the owner of the object certified by a notary is required for unification. Such certification was not required at the first step, although this first step was in fact the change of the contractual relations and their transfer from the existing customer to the new one.

Technical (and financial) complications

The technical process of unification of OMMs is reduced to the dismantling of existing meters and setting up a new (i.e. in the observed case, a more modern existing meter from one of the apartments was used). This is where the first part of the completely unplanned costs comes in. Namely, since the building was built in the mid-1970s, electrical installations were realized according to the technical requirements of the time, in other words, the existing meters are located inside the apartment in the corridors. However, since a new meter is now being installed, it cannot be installed in the apartment according to the regulations, but must be installed on the outside of the building. This is probably a situation that occurs in most facilities in the Republic of Croatia, and represents a potentially serious cost of several thousand kunas for the typical installation of a new outer cabinet, change of installations and their certification.

And now we come to the most absurd part: although this activity is carried out due to the installation of a photovoltaic plant, nthis OMM will not receive an electric meter which will be immediately ‘two-way’ and to be used for the purpose of joining the FNE. In HEP, this situation is explained by the fact that these are separate business processes and that do not install bidirectional meters (as they are not required in 99% cases), and when set FNE then be in the frame Requests for verification of the possibility of connecting a household with its own production are resolved and the issue of a ‘two-way’ meter. Of course, these operations are not free and the price is several thousand kuna per meter for assembly and dismantling.

Instead of a conclusion

Undoubtedly, there is a need to simplify the process and eliminate unnecessary steps – in other words create a special process for the installation of FNE This will bring together potential steps and drastically reduce the number of arrivals and the necessary documents. An additional problem is that each step means filling in several forms, submitting them to the competent HEP service, then waiting at least ten days in each step.

In the observed case, almost three months were spent on these steps, all before the installation and connection of the power plant even took place. It should be emphasized that in the whole process, the support of HEP employees was correct and very professional, and that they themselves believe that the process could be significantly improved, but they say they are limited by rigid ordinances.

Photo documentation

Below is a photo gallery that well documents the entire editing process – from idea to bird's-eye view...

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