Comment on European-style plug-in solar could quickly cut soaring utility bills in Massachusetts
lime@feddit.nu 5 weeks ago
does that even work in a split-phase system?
Comment on European-style plug-in solar could quickly cut soaring utility bills in Massachusetts
lime@feddit.nu 5 weeks ago
does that even work in a split-phase system?
eleitl@lemmy.zip 5 weeks ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-phase_electric_power ?
Solar microinverters are usually for single phase (sync to 230 VAC 50 Hz) and the balkonkraftwerk ones are plugged in into wall sockets. Of course, if there are multiple phases in a household you can plug in an solar microinverter output into a socket that’s on a different phase. They turn off within some 20 ms or less, so this is safe if mains losing power.
There are regular solar inverters that can deal with three phases, and also some which can deal with battery charging and can operate in insular mode and are black start capable.
lime@feddit.nu 5 weeks ago
i’m mostly thinking of how it works when production is larger than demand in the local circuit. phase imbalances are a bigger deal when the phases are 180° out of sync.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 5 weeks ago
When production is larger than local demand you’re feeding in into the power grid. If your meter can ran backwards, then you’re saving even more money.
lime@feddit.nu 5 weeks ago
in a normal three-phase system, yes. you just slightly imbalance one phase. but in a split-phase system, backfeeding can move the neutral point.
TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
Most states are limiting balcony solar to 600-1200W, which is only 5-10A at 120V. Not enough to cause problems with imbalanced loads in a home, and most peoples homes aren’t terribly well balanced anyways. It all more or less evens out by the time you have 10-20 (or however many - idk, I’m not a lineman) homes on a tranformer.