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The ‘Guerrilla Solar’ Era Has Arrived, and Here’s What to Know
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Midnight@slrpnk.net to energy@slrpnk.net
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25062026/inside-clean-energy-plug-in-solar-era-has-arrived/
Comments
pedantichedgehog@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago TRBoom@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Oh shit! My state just passed plug in solar!
Where the heck do I get some lol
evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Thats the problem: no one actually makes the devices yet, but there are official standards now, so I bet we’ll be getting the first devices before the end of the year.
lnsy@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Kind of an ad, but I wrote tiny-solar.space to help plan systems like this.
That’s what I am talking about! This needs to be everywhere. Great post, op!
JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Well they are correct to a point.
If the solar panel don’t have grid failure shutdown for its inverter, it can shock (or with bad luck) kill workers working on a downed power line assuming the load side is safe. That is also why house installations also often only have a dedicated outlet during power loss and are not allowed to connect to the full house.
I agree everyone should be able to get off-grid solar system or balcony solar, but they should have to be certified to not shock workers during an outage when people inevitably get cheap TEMU balcony solar.
Jimny_Crkt@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
This is what UL 3700 certification was developed to address.
Good points. I’ll also admit I have a fear of electricity so I’d totally be scared. But my local utilities are not saying this because they are worried about our well being, they are worried about making less money.
MinorLaceration@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Another potential issue is the possibility of overloading a circuit if these are used incorrectly. Basically, having enough load on the same circuit as too many of these panels would cause over current that is not seen by the upstream breaker. That’s probably an unlikely circumstance but something to be aware of and to design controls to prevent.
bountygiver@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
And panels are the cheap part. Going from expensive to cheap for a full solar setup is going to be battery > inverter > panels. So wouldn’t be surprised if some DIY people may consider skimping on inverters that can actually protect the grid.
cynar@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As well as the risks of shoddy kit, there is also a grid stability issue.
Basically, solar can go off an on at a fairly rapid rate, compared to what the grid is designed for. This can lead to instabilities. Either brownouts or spikes in voltage. This can panic some grid equipment and force a shutdown.
What they should do is invest in their infrastructure and make it better able to cope with a distributed supply, distributed load setup. We all know how they feel about investments however!
DrunkenPirate@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Funny boy.
Do you think a company invests heavily into infrastructure to undermine its core business (selling power)?
Tell me tell you from Germany: No. For last 20 years. No
golli@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I’m from Germany where as the article point out small solar installations are quite common e.g. on balconies, but while they are obviously vastly preferable compared to not having them, I still kind of see them as somewhat of a sign for systematic failure.
There’s just no way it makes more sense for everyone to do some small installation with maybe even some batteries, instead of doing large scale deployments where efficiency of scale drives down cost and complexity.
The solution really should have been to involve people by doing large solar parks and giving people the ability (maybe subsidized) to purchase ownership shares. And through that letting them participate in the profits and gaining mind share.
And we easily have the space for it. Roughly 20% of agricultural land is used for energy crops source, which is much less efficient and also worse for biodiversity, id you let stuff grow around/under solar panels.
Just take some of e.g. 750 million hectares used to plant rapeseed for biofuels and put solar on them. Rather than trying to do lots of small custom home installations.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I’ve got one of those big Anker Solix power stations. I have two ideas for it:
My wood shop is powered by one 20A breaker from my house. Running lights, dust collection and power tools is a lot to ask of a single 20A circuit, so the power station is basically another one.
As an emergency power source for my refrigerator. In the not infrequent event of a power failure, I have some power that isn’t a gasoline powered generator.
Turns out, it’s got a TOU mode. So if you’re on one of those time-of-use plans with your power company, you can set this thing to store power from when it’s cheap, pass through when it’s average, and provide power from battery when it’s expensive. My refrigerator, apparently, draws a near constant 165 watts. So I might look into that here.