this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
306 points (98.7% liked)

World News

38554 readers
2697 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TitanLaGrange@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

FTA:

The so-called plug-in systems involve routing the direct current generated by the panels to an inverter, which converts it to an alternating current. They can then be plugged into a conventional wall socket to feed power to a home.

So, yeah, almost certainly illegal in pretty much any grid-powered home in the US.

The basic problem is that if the grid power goes down the inverter can back-feed the grid enough to electrocute the people who are working to fix it.

Utilities require an approved isolation system of some kind that prevents that happening. They are pretty strict about this for various other technical and political reasons too, but evidently it is mostly a safety concern.

I've got some good locations at home for panels, and about 500W in panels that I use for camping, but the equipment I'd need to handle easily and safely consuming the power at home is kind of expensive (just running an inverter and a battery for an isolated system is easy enough, I've got all that, but it's not cheap to seamlessly connect it to my home power system). Would love to have a safe and approved system like what is described in the article.

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 29 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Houses in Europe are connected to the grid too.

These systems are approved in Europe by utilities because they have failsafes implemented to prevent back feeding electricity in the grid.

The fact that these systems are still illegal in the US is a political issue, not a technical one.

[–] turmacar@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

[European utilities] have failsafes implemented to prevent back feeding electricity in the grid

Yeah but imagine if you could save money by not doing that? What are the odds that there's going to be cheap(er) personal mass power generation in the next few decades.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

While it seems like they’d have to, the article makes no mention of such a fail safe. What does it do and how could it work?

[–] bestagon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

From what it sounds like, the safety is in the device not the grid. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a far lesser sense of personal responsibility to those around you in the US than Europe and I don’t know that I’d trust that nobody over here would fudge some bypass to power their house in an outage

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

These systems are approved in Europe by utilities because they have failsafes implemented to prevent back feeding electricity in the grid.

Sounds like Big Government Regulation of my God Damned Rights to do something on my house as I see fit! Europe's full o' damn communists and their stupid sun grabbin' electro-gibbits. That's why they'll never be the Greatest Bestest Country on da face a dis here Earf.

[–] 31ank@ani.social 15 points 1 month ago

Balcony solars are not able to back feed since they need the grid to synchronize, if you want one that is able to work in "island mode" you still need approval from the grid provider/one that isnt connected with the schuko connector.