Comment on Easy-to-use solar panels are coming, but utilities are trying to delay them
artyom@piefed.social 10 hours ago
I mean, it makes sense to me that consumers can’t be pumping energy into the grid with no way to cut it off, but I’m not a lineman or some sort of civil engineer or whatever.
But if I were a lawmaker, I’d be on the phone with the Germans, who have 1.2M of these connected, and figuring out if and how they’re doing it safely. But lawmakers seem to be somehow incapable of reaching out to people who know fuck all about anything.
In the US, reaching out to other countries for advice, even if they’re our allies, seems to be viewed as treason. At a minimum, seems like treason against “real” masculinity, on which American culture is fueled, especially now.
‘Why don’t you just stop to ask for directions?’
‘I know where I’m going!!1!1111!1!!!1!’
🙄
They are commonly used in many parts of Europe.
If you drop some Tariff percentages, we might be willing to advise.
Sure, but the article specifically mentions Germany, which leads me to believe they’re likely most abundant in that region?
Pretty sure there are tons of people who would be willing to advise on how to improve the world without discussion of tariffs that are entirely in the control of a single moron-in-chief.
Germany has a lot of plug-in solar for balconies (Balkonkraftwerke) and it’s available at very cheap prices (example here). I know it only provides up to 800W on a very sunny day but that’s still a significant amount for an apartment. And the beauty of these is that they are so plug-and-play, everything is included. You hang it, connect the cables and plug it into a socket and then you’re done.
I live in the Netherlands but I’ve been seriously considering picking up one of these if my building HoA doesn’t want to do a rooftop solar project for our building.
Yes, that was mentioned in the OP as well as the comment you replied to.
I had a chat about this with a friend who works for the national grid (UK).
Apparently the problem is keeping the grid balanced and stable. Basically, the grid struggles to react fast, so they plan ahead. Things like large scale solar can provide predictions on output. Home solar can’t.
When clouds pass over an area it can cause slumps and surges in the local grid. The more home solar, the worse it gets. The current grid is designed to work top down, with predictable changes in demand. It needs upgrading to deal with large scale bidirectional flows.
The plug in units are (potentially) even more ropey. If used properly, they are no worse than normal home solar. Unfortunately, being cheaper, there are worries over the microinverters not shutting down. Either due to the manufacturer cheaping out, or turning on an “off grid” mode.
There are also worries about overloading household circuits. Back feeding bypasses the household circuit breakers and RCDs. They could overload wall wiring and cause fires, or stop an RCD tripping, allowing for a person to be shocked.
I don’t know how much this would apply to the American Grid, but I would imagine it would be worse. Your grid is older and larger. You also use 120VAC which makes the current overload issue a lot worse.
You also use 120VAC which makes the current overload issue a lot worse.
Voltage inside of residences is 120v AC, but its 240v thats delivered to each house. I think a bigger difference is that in the USA that 240v AC is single phase where I believe (Germany included) many nations in the EU are 3 phase.
These systems are designed to not push power back up if the grid goes down. In most areas, the municipality won’t even allow a solar installation to be connected or even finished without it being inspected to verify you have that sort of setup.
What system?
My research shows theres no permitting required in Utah but please correct me if I’m wrong.
Did you respond to the wrong message? Nothing I said anything to do with Utah.
Are you in the wrong thread? Because the OP is about Utah and the US.
Ugh, not Germany. Try the Netherlands. In Germany it is a huge bureaucratic undertaking to put energy back into the grid. In the Netherlands (as far as I know) your meter just runs backwards and at the end of the year you just pay the difference or nothing if it’s lower than the year before.
In Germany your electricity provider pays you for what you put back into the grid. But not as much as pulling out is worth. That’s why almost all solar solutions in Germany are either small or need a battery because using the energy yourself is worth more than sharing it with everyone.
There are people in the Netherlands that have the system you describe. This is pretty rare though due to the massive push for new energy meters that’s been going on for the last 10 years or so. And with good reason: lots of the old meters people had were pretty unsafe and unreliable. For most people, having automatic usage reports going to both them and the electricity provider far outweighs the downsides.
Most of us are in a similar situation as Germany. We have smart meters that allow you to provide power back to the grid and this is currently very profitable. However, from 2027 onwards they are (mostly) getting rid of the profits this brings the consumer, in order to make the grid more stable and also for other, less clear (most likely energy company and government spending related) reasons.
As someone who’s worked in the grid provider field for a bit I’m not necessarily against this change; peak power surges due to lots of people selling of their excess solar power production is a huge problem that’s making the energy transition that much more difficult. Even in local grids, we’re starting to have to use massive power cables to be able to handle this. This brings with it a lot of extra costs and permit nonsense, making the life of the grid manager that much more difficult.
I wish people would take this upcoming deadline to start electrying more things in their house. But if my parents are anything to go by, all they’ll do is complain about losing their golden goose that they’ve profited from for over 10 years. They could get an electric car instead of their nonsense plug-in hybrid, they could electrify their heating needs, they could install a home battery and so much more. I know it costs money to do so but you basically run all of it for free most of the year. And besides that, with all the current global issues that are going on the reliance on fossil fuels should be phased out rapidly.
Thanks, that actually makes the German way sound more sane and more manageable.
I wasn’t aware balcony solar isn’t a thing in other countries because it’s everywhere here in Germany. So I was wondering what new thing they are talking about being even more easier.
I mean, it makes sense to me that consumers can’t be pumping energy into the grid with no way to cut it off,
I’m certain they’re designed to safely be able to do this
Almost certainly, because people use gas generators as backup in storm hit areas all the time.
What are?
The grid. Or more specifically, the SCADA computers that are constantly monitoring and controlling the entire system.
There is no safe way to service live wires.
They have been constantly working to reach out to the utility companies to find a way to halt this.
It is more than just the concern around back-feeding the grid. These simple balcony setups connect to your home grid via a single outlet. Most US outlets/circuits are 15 AMP or roughly 1500 watts max capacity. These single circuits can only carry that much current total at any one time so if you have it loaded up with incoming power AND use anything else on the circuit at the same time … no bueno. To make this setup work best/safely you would ideally want a dedicated circuit for it which is basically non-existent today.
The safety issues really do need to be addressed because the folks most likely to use these systems are apartment dwellers and I don’t think anyone wants to increase fire risk in these scenarios.
Most US outlets/circuits are 15 AMP or roughly 1500 watts max capacity.
That’s why they’re limited to 1200 watts.
His point was that if you’ve got 1200w incoming from the panel then you only have 300w of overhead on that circuit before the circuit breaker blows.
Sure, it’s within the limit on its own, but without a dedicated circuit for it you’ll be blowing a fuse pretty frequently when trying to use nearby plugs and lights.
As I said, that’s not how that works. If you have 1200w incoming to the circuit and 300W outgoing, then the circuit load is actually decreased to 900w
1200 incoming + 1 hairdryer at the same time equals overloaded circuit though.
That’s now how that works. You got 1200 coming in and 1200 going out, so the solar would just power the dryer directly.
If you use anything else on the circuit the power from the solar will just go directly into that device and bypass the wall wiring entirely.
There are a lot of circuits in the US that power multiple duplex outlets around a room. You could plug in a solar panel into one outlet and a load into another and they would be connected by a length of Romex in the walls.
Generally that’s fine and I agree, but one edge case that people overlook that I think is worth mentioning (and maybe what gp heard about and is trying to articulate) is that having an inverter or generator on the same circuit as a big energy consumer means that the breaker wouldn’t see the total energy being used by the consumer, and so it might not trip even if the consumer pulls too much wattage. That’s the main reason I know of why power sources should be on their own breaker - so it doesn’t hide power from the breaker but forces it to go out the generator circuit breaker and back in the consumer breaker so it can be protected properly.
This is why balkonkraftwerk is limited to 800 W feed-in.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
The microinverters stop feeding in if grid goes down. So it’s safe.
CMahaff@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Hmmm, I wonder how this would affect things in the future where this is widely used.
I.E. if you had both widespread solar usage and some kind of large blackout, would it be hard to get all your solar back online because it’s all in the “waiting for the grid” state? And the grid can’t come back at capacity because all the solar it’s expecting is out?
I assume people smarter than me have this figured out, but just a random thought if anyone knows more.
artyom@piefed.social 10 hours ago
How do you know? In a typical solar system, you have to have a permit, which requires an inspector to come out and ensure everything is configured correctly and safely. These don’t require any permits, which is great for making them more affordable and accessible, but there’s also no one coming around to make sure that anyone is doing it safely.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
I know it because it’s in the spec necessary for licensing. It shuts off in under 20 ms so you can’t even get shocked by the prongs of the plug if pulled out.
artyom@piefed.social 9 hours ago
What license? Who is coming to verify your license?
shininghero@pawb.social 9 hours ago
Easy check, grab a voltmeter and do it yourself.
Pull the plug, set voltmeter to AC, and read the voltage across the prongs. If you get anything over the usual float voltage you get from just holding the probes ungrounded, then you have a problem.
artyom@piefed.social 9 hours ago
By “you” I did not mean your personal solar system. I mean how does the utility know that other users that have systems connected are doing so safely?
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
you can unilaterally connect your solar panels to the grid. you have to work with the utility to turn them up, and they require permits and passed inspections.
artyom@piefed.social 9 hours ago
According to my research, there is no such permit required in Utah. And presumably new legislation is looking to have this exception as well.
4am@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
What happens when someone makes an unsafe backfeed into a downed grid and then other nearby inverters detect the current and bring themselves back online? Is there a way to detect if the load is being delivered from the utility vs from incorrectly configured solar or generator installations?
Some others are arguing back and forth about this elsewhere in the thread and I see the reasoning: unpermitted systems could accidentally energize isolated portions of the grid during downtime, which might trick properly installed systems to also come back online, and you have a runaway effect where there is enough current present to allow addition safety systems to be fooled.
There isn’t any data transmission over the wires; there either is current, or there isn’t. Arguing over permitting is moot - either safety systems can handle this scenario already, or they can’t.
All paperwork does is slow the relief of dependence on the utility, which hurts their profits.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
The same thing that currently happens when somebody does that with a gas generator? Linepersons get zapped… people get sued… etc…
That’s very wrong. Not only can you extend Ethernet in your own home using your power outlets, the power companies have been reading meters this way for decades.
artyom@piefed.social 4 hours ago
Kinda seems like something you might want to avoid…