103
The ‘Guerrilla Solar’ Era Has Arrived, and Here’s What to Know (insideclimatenews.org)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/energy@slrpnk.net
19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 19 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 33 points 4 months ago* (12 children)

That's what I'm talking about! This needs to be everywhere. Funny though, my local utilities already has it marked on their agenda to "discuss" these types of solar setups. They say they "may not be safe to use."

Actually the reality is that utility companies stand to lose money from tech like this. So hopefully my community and others can stand up for this tech.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 12 child comments
    •
  • [–] 18 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    You have to understand, for this to happen you would need more than 15/20 amps of electrical use plugged into that circuit. As soon as a cloud reduces the solar output, the entire load would be on the utility end of the circuit and the breaker would trip.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I agree. Clouds are my preferred form of overcurrent protection.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    I guess my point is that creating an over current condition requires plugging in more demand than the circuit is designed for, and the solar piece would only allow that setup to run intermittently. A reasonable person would turn off some of the load or move it to other outlets the first time the breaker tripped.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 4 months 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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago*

    I hear that. Their concern trolling can look or sound right on the surface ("worker safety is our top priority!") and still be disingenuous af.

    They know just as well as we do that we have the knowledge and skills to make safe, cost effective, and accessible solar panels and batteries for homes. There are tons of real-world examples already that we can learn from, refine for our particulars, and use just by looking at Europe and Southeast Asia. There's a safety standard/framework for plug-in solar that's already been published for the US, UL 3700. (It's been out for six months now!)

    Any "discussions" about how to make plug-in solar safe for North American users are kvetch sessions for nervous executives clutching their pearls.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 4 months 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!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 4 months 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 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.

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    I've got one of those big Anker Solix power stations. I have two ideas for it:

    1. 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.

    2. 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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 13 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    If you're in the US: https://www.pluginsolarmap.com/

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Oh shit! My state just passed plug in solar!

    Where the heck do I get some lol

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
    • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Kind of an ad, but I wrote https://tiny-solar.space/ to help plan systems like this.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •