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Not sure why sol-ark is getting blamed. People were buying Chinese inverters meant for the Chinese market off aliexpress on the gray market and shipping them t

by tw04 2y ago

Not sure why sol-ark is getting blamed. People were buying Chinese inverters meant for the Chinese market off aliexpress on the gray market and shipping them to other countries. Deye decided to crack down on the behavior. There’s nothing indicating this has anything to do with sol-Ark at this point other than them being the approved distributor of rebranded deye inverters in the US.

stavros 2y ago
What harm was it to Deye that these were being sold elsewhere, that they couldn't fix by saying "sorry, we only support China"?
- quintushoratius 2y ago
  Two possibilities come to mind: 1. They're not properly licensed for other markets. Something equivalent to selling a radio transmitter in the US that's not registered with the FCC. 2. They price units outside of Asian markets much higher and don't want to allow/encourage arbitrage that they don't control. This is definitely a case of "porqué no los dos" (or more).
  - KANahas 2y ago
    From a link in the article: > The contracts we sign with all dealers clearly stipulate that products that are not UL certified and listed by local power grid companies may not be sold or used in the United States, because the products do not meet US UL standards. If used in violation of this policy, the devices may pose significant-safety risks. To address this, Deye has built a verification mechanism into the devices. The pop-up alert is automatically triggered by the device’s authorization verification mechanism, rather than by any human intervention.
    - myself248 2y ago
      Yeah, which is garbage. UL is a certification body, not a legal requirement. Your insurance might want it, your utility might want it. But there's plenty of ways to use solar inverters where neither of those factors applies. And furthermore, you can buy tons of non-UL-certified junk at Harbor Freight and plug it in yourself. It's not like there's a magic forcefield at the border that these Deye units somehow slipped through. Using that as an explanation for disabling their hardware is so insubstantial as to be just this side of an outright lie. And I'm astonished that the linked article isn't calling them out on it.
      - mpnex 2y ago
        UL is a certification body, yes. When the local building code requires that grid-connected devices are UL listed, then it becomes a legal requirement. I suspect this is probably the case in most jurisdictions across the US. edit: NEC section 110.2 indicates all equipment must be "approved" and delegates this to the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) locally; and the majority of them are going to defer to a "NRTL" (Nominally Recognized Testing Laboratory, such as UL, CSA, ETL, etc) instead of doing all the expensive and tedious testing themselves. So when it comes to grid connections, some sort of approval is nearly always a de facto legal requirement.
        lazide 2y ago
        Mobile installations (RV’s, construction trailers, etc.) and off grid are two very common types of installations for solar inverters. And do not have to meet those requirements.
        seany 2y ago
        There are _many_ ways that all of this doesn't apply. Nevermind the fact that people that but things have the expectation of using the device with out interference.
        anon84873628 2y ago
        Let's assume there are some people using these devices in a way that is not compliant with the local codes, because they haven't met the testing/certification requirements. Genuine question. Which of these options do we prefer? (Choose any number) 1. Deye proactively bricks all the devices 2. US governments compel Deye to brick the devices 3. Local authorities penalize people using the devices illegally 4. No one does anything
        seany 2y ago
        1000% #4. No thought is even required to answer that.
        2y ago
- stefan_ 2y ago
  Different countries have different laws and requirements around grid-connected inverters, mostly so people working on the grid don't get electrocuted when a stray inverter keeps feeding in power.
CyanLite2 2y ago
Sol-Ark’s markup is like 5x the list price just for the official rebadged version. Sol-Arks (“US veteran owned company”) still have the firmware made in China, and are susceptible to Chinese hackers, and had to be bought through a distributor. So naturally people went with off-listed Deye inverters because of the scheningans from Sol-Ark. Now, people are without power and they have to go to Sol-Ark to get power restored, likely by paying through the nose.
- greenthrow 2y ago
  That's one way to frame it. Another is Sol-ark incurs costs of developing, marketing and supporting their official devices and the contract manufacturer is able to sell their own version in the Chinese market. Greedy people who don't want to pay Sol-ark for all the costs they incurred bought grey market devices that Sol-ark has repeatedly warned are in contract violation in this market. The manufacturer, not Sol-ark, has now bricked those devices, and people are blaming Sol-ark anyway because they want to continue to justify their actions.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    If the people are buying directly from manufacturer, why should any costs that Sol-ark has incurred be their concern? They aren't using the official devices, so they aren't enjoying any advantages of that, either.
    - RHSeeger 2y ago
      Because those costs were incurred with the plan to recoup the cost from sales in the US, and (presumably) those people are bypassing the licensed sale/use; which ruins that plan. Your question is really no different than asking why it's not legal for me photocopy books and ignore copyright.
      - vlovich123 2y ago
        The problem is they already took the money and basically broke it after the fact. Typically there’s all sorts of legal protections protecting against something like that.
josephcsible 2y ago
> Deye decided to crack down on the behavior. Contempt of business model is legal, and vigilantism is not.
mleonhard 2y ago
USA is a free market. Everyone is authorized all the time to sell every safe product. The terms "gray market" and "authorized reseller" are linguistic manipulations which benefit manufacturers at the expense of everyone else in society. I think Daye broke US law when they destroyed law-fully purchased products inside USA. I hope the inverter owners bring a class-action lawsuit against Daye in the US. The court could block the sale of the company's products in USA until they restore the inverters and pay restitution.
- oefrha 2y ago
  That’s laughably wrong. Exclusive distribution rights are probably enforced more strictly in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world. They are governed by contract law. In addition, many product categories need to be demonstrated as safe to the right licensing agencies before being sold, not after.
  - walterbell 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
    - oefrha 2y ago
      That first sale has to be legal for the subsequent resales to be legal. Plus we’re not talking about (domestic) resales here, the topic at hand is questionable imports of products never intended for sale in the U.S. off Aliexpress.
      - walterbell 2y ago
        https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/u-s-supreme-court-holds-that-books-printed-and-sold-abroad-may.html https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/u-s-supreme-co... > U.S. Supreme Court Holds that Books Printed and Sold Abroad May Be Freely Resold in the U.S. Because the Copyrights Are Exhausted Under the First-Sale Doctrine

by tw04 2y ago

stavros 2y ago

What harm was it to Deye that these were being sold elsewhere, that they couldn't fix by saying "sorry, we only support China"?

quintushoratius 2y ago
Two possibilities come to mind: 1. They're not properly licensed for other markets. Something equivalent to selling a radio transmitter in the US that's not registered with the FCC. 2. They price units outside of Asian markets much higher and don't want to allow/encourage arbitrage that they don't control. This is definitely a case of "porqué no los dos" (or more).
- KANahas 2y ago
  From a link in the article: > The contracts we sign with all dealers clearly stipulate that products that are not UL certified and listed by local power grid companies may not be sold or used in the United States, because the products do not meet US UL standards. If used in violation of this policy, the devices may pose significant-safety risks. To address this, Deye has built a verification mechanism into the devices. The pop-up alert is automatically triggered by the device’s authorization verification mechanism, rather than by any human intervention.
  - myself248 2y ago
    Yeah, which is garbage. UL is a certification body, not a legal requirement. Your insurance might want it, your utility might want it. But there's plenty of ways to use solar inverters where neither of those factors applies. And furthermore, you can buy tons of non-UL-certified junk at Harbor Freight and plug it in yourself. It's not like there's a magic forcefield at the border that these Deye units somehow slipped through. Using that as an explanation for disabling their hardware is so insubstantial as to be just this side of an outright lie. And I'm astonished that the linked article isn't calling them out on it.
    - mpnex 2y ago
      UL is a certification body, yes. When the local building code requires that grid-connected devices are UL listed, then it becomes a legal requirement. I suspect this is probably the case in most jurisdictions across the US. edit: NEC section 110.2 indicates all equipment must be "approved" and delegates this to the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) locally; and the majority of them are going to defer to a "NRTL" (Nominally Recognized Testing Laboratory, such as UL, CSA, ETL, etc) instead of doing all the expensive and tedious testing themselves. So when it comes to grid connections, some sort of approval is nearly always a de facto legal requirement.
      - lazide 2y ago
        Mobile installations (RV’s, construction trailers, etc.) and off grid are two very common types of installations for solar inverters. And do not have to meet those requirements.
      - seany 2y ago
        There are _many_ ways that all of this doesn't apply. Nevermind the fact that people that but things have the expectation of using the device with out interference.
        anon84873628 2y ago
        Let's assume there are some people using these devices in a way that is not compliant with the local codes, because they haven't met the testing/certification requirements. Genuine question. Which of these options do we prefer? (Choose any number) 1. Deye proactively bricks all the devices 2. US governments compel Deye to brick the devices 3. Local authorities penalize people using the devices illegally 4. No one does anything
        seany 2y ago
        1000% #4. No thought is even required to answer that.
        2y ago
stefan_ 2y ago
Different countries have different laws and requirements around grid-connected inverters, mostly so people working on the grid don't get electrocuted when a stray inverter keeps feeding in power.

CyanLite2 2y ago

Sol-Ark’s markup is like 5x the list price just for the official rebadged version. Sol-Arks (“US veteran owned company”) still have the firmware made in China, and are susceptible to Chinese hackers, and had to be bought through a distributor. So naturally people went with off-listed Deye inverters because of the scheningans from Sol-Ark. Now, people are without power and they have to go to Sol-Ark to get power restored, likely by paying through the nose.

greenthrow 2y ago
That's one way to frame it. Another is Sol-ark incurs costs of developing, marketing and supporting their official devices and the contract manufacturer is able to sell their own version in the Chinese market. Greedy people who don't want to pay Sol-ark for all the costs they incurred bought grey market devices that Sol-ark has repeatedly warned are in contract violation in this market. The manufacturer, not Sol-ark, has now bricked those devices, and people are blaming Sol-ark anyway because they want to continue to justify their actions.
- int_19h 2y ago
  If the people are buying directly from manufacturer, why should any costs that Sol-ark has incurred be their concern? They aren't using the official devices, so they aren't enjoying any advantages of that, either.
  - RHSeeger 2y ago
    Because those costs were incurred with the plan to recoup the cost from sales in the US, and (presumably) those people are bypassing the licensed sale/use; which ruins that plan. Your question is really no different than asking why it's not legal for me photocopy books and ignore copyright.
    - vlovich123 2y ago
      The problem is they already took the money and basically broke it after the fact. Typically there’s all sorts of legal protections protecting against something like that.

josephcsible 2y ago

> Deye decided to crack down on the behavior. Contempt of business model is legal, and vigilantism is not.

mleonhard 2y ago

USA is a free market. Everyone is authorized all the time to sell every safe product. The terms "gray market" and "authorized reseller" are linguistic manipulations which benefit manufacturers at the expense of everyone else in society. I think Daye broke US law when they destroyed law-fully purchased products inside USA. I hope the inverter owners bring a class-action lawsuit against Daye in the US. The court could block the sale of the company's products in USA until they restore the inverters and pay restitution.

oefrha 2y ago
That’s laughably wrong. Exclusive distribution rights are probably enforced more strictly in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world. They are governed by contract law. In addition, many product categories need to be demonstrated as safe to the right licensing agencies before being sold, not after.
- walterbell 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
  - oefrha 2y ago
    That first sale has to be legal for the subsequent resales to be legal. Plus we’re not talking about (domestic) resales here, the topic at hand is questionable imports of products never intended for sale in the U.S. off Aliexpress.
    - walterbell 2y ago
      https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/u-s-supreme-court-holds-that-books-printed-and-sold-abroad-may.html https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/u-s-supreme-co... > U.S. Supreme Court Holds that Books Printed and Sold Abroad May Be Freely Resold in the U.S. Because the Copyrights Are Exhausted Under the First-Sale Doctrine