Brilliant news!
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All well and good, but folk then start to complain to their suppliers (and from there to the DNO) that, on sunny summer days, their solar inverter has shut down and they've missed out on savings/earnings.
The DNO limit / permission process is designed to keep export low enough that the local network rarely reaches 258V and they don't get deluged with complaints from their customers.
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@sheddi@mstdn.party @revk@toot.me.uk @Walrus@toot.wales @Edent@mastodon.social There were mutterings recently of dropping the substation voltage to nearer the lower end of the tolerance band to accommodate more domestic PV contribution.
Nominally we are 230V but most British¹ domestic supplies are still 240V when measured.
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¹ Northern Ireland is a separate grid and might be doing their own thing.
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Brilliant news! The UK's Labour Government are going to make "plug in solar" legal.
Grab some panels from Lidl, hang them off your balcony or out your window, plug them in to your mains. Done!
Government to go "further and faster" in becoming energy secure
The Energy Secretary outlines measures to protect consumers and make Britain energy secure.
GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
@Edent They are also making headway in the US. Now if someone would incorporate them into ventanas, roll down sunshades, used in every sunny country. You can thank me later.
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@Edent power / sec nerd here. How does this not energize intentionally-deenergized lines? Mustn’t cook line repair crews.
@InkomTech @Edent Just like any grid-tied PV inverter, it constantly monitors for loss-of-main on the AC side and has to switch off within a certain number of milliseconds when cut-out is detected. This is one of many prerequisites for the device getting regulatory approval for grid connection.
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Brilliant news! The UK's Labour Government are going to make "plug in solar" legal.
Grab some panels from Lidl, hang them off your balcony or out your window, plug them in to your mains. Done!
Government to go "further and faster" in becoming energy secure
The Energy Secretary outlines measures to protect consumers and make Britain energy secure.
GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
@Edent I’ve seen these in Germany and it discombobulates me to think that I can feed electricity into my house the “wrong” way.
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@fishidwardrobe @Edent You plug it into your wall and it makes your meter run more slowly or in reverse. Plug-in solar inverters also often come with apps to track your production.
@phoerious @fishidwardrobe @Edent These things have been permitted and widely available in Austria for 5 years or so, but only if you have a smart meter (even running in "dumb" mode) which counts outflow separately from inflow. The energy suppliers don't like meters running in reverse. If you have a feed-in contract, you'll be paid for what you feed back into the grid (typically much less than energy you buy from them); if you don't, you won't.
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Brilliant news! The UK's Labour Government are going to make "plug in solar" legal.
Grab some panels from Lidl, hang them off your balcony or out your window, plug them in to your mains. Done!
Government to go "further and faster" in becoming energy secure
The Energy Secretary outlines measures to protect consumers and make Britain energy secure.
GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
@Edent this does not say of there are any requirements for the plug-in solar. The main objections here in Norway is the potential for shock from touching the prongs on the plug, from something else plugged into the same circuit and from anyone working on the main powerlines, since the panels produce power even if there is no power from the grid. Are these things considered in the UK?
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@Edent this does not say of there are any requirements for the plug-in solar. The main objections here in Norway is the potential for shock from touching the prongs on the plug, from something else plugged into the same circuit and from anyone working on the main powerlines, since the panels produce power even if there is no power from the grid. Are these things considered in the UK?
@gundersen no, we just let people die.
Of course they are considered. All inverters continually check for the presence of the grid's frequency. If the frequency is lost, it immediately de-energises.
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@phoerious @fishidwardrobe @Edent These things have been permitted and widely available in Austria for 5 years or so, but only if you have a smart meter (even running in "dumb" mode) which counts outflow separately from inflow. The energy suppliers don't like meters running in reverse. If you have a feed-in contract, you'll be paid for what you feed back into the grid (typically much less than energy you buy from them); if you don't, you won't.
@pmdj @fishidwardrobe @Edent Most modern digital meters should be able to do that even if they don’t come with a smart gateway.
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@pmdj @fishidwardrobe @Edent Most modern digital meters should be able to do that even if they don’t come with a smart gateway.
@phoerious @fishidwardrobe @Edent Yes, I think the rollout here was straight from analog to smart, and you can opt into or out of the smart functions.
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Brilliant news! The UK's Labour Government are going to make "plug in solar" legal.
Grab some panels from Lidl, hang them off your balcony or out your window, plug them in to your mains. Done!
Government to go "further and faster" in becoming energy secure
The Energy Secretary outlines measures to protect consumers and make Britain energy secure.
GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
@Edent ooooooh! I want these!
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Brilliant news! The UK's Labour Government are going to make "plug in solar" legal.
Grab some panels from Lidl, hang them off your balcony or out your window, plug them in to your mains. Done!
Government to go "further and faster" in becoming energy secure
The Energy Secretary outlines measures to protect consumers and make Britain energy secure.
GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
@Edent
Better to have batteries too or your solar can't be used at night or during power cuts.Solar UPS systems have been sold for years and legal everywhere. They have an MPPT controller to charge the LiFePO4 batteries, an inverter to give 230V AC from the 12V to 48V nominal batteries and a mains charger to recharge the batteries if not enough sun.
Can be used to "move" cheap night time electricity to daytime in winter.Far better than simply feeding solar power to the grid. This is a sop.
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@sheddi @Edent And for doubters: I doubted it too.
Then I bought 2 panels + micro inverter and generated 800kWh per year.
Even a back-pocket country like ours (Slo.) allows it without any special permit (600W grid output max., no selling).
But beware: this is an entry drug. When you taste it, you will want more. -
@Edent
Better to have batteries too or your solar can't be used at night or during power cuts.Solar UPS systems have been sold for years and legal everywhere. They have an MPPT controller to charge the LiFePO4 batteries, an inverter to give 230V AC from the 12V to 48V nominal batteries and a mains charger to recharge the batteries if not enough sun.
Can be used to "move" cheap night time electricity to daytime in winter.Far better than simply feeding solar power to the grid. This is a sop.
@raymaccarthy
What do you mean "a sop"?Balcony solar works really well in Germany. Even without a battery, this will offset people's energy costs by letting them use solar in the day.
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@raymaccarthy
What do you mean "a sop"?Balcony solar works really well in Germany. Even without a battery, this will offset people's energy costs by letting them use solar in the day.
@Edent
Because Solar UPS doesn't need this "law change".
The LiFePO4 (unlike Lithium Ion) are safe and maybe 10 to 20 years life.
It's short sighted and a rubbish system to have no batteries.
There is less than 1/10th solar in Dec/Jan compared to Jun/Jul. Adding batteries means cheaper winter daytime electricity and typically 10 hours backup for vital stuff in Jan/Dec to indefinate during the summer.
Also many of the plug in cheap micro-inverters are poor quality & high radio interference -
@Edent @OneInterestingFact Plug-in solar is usually not enough that feeding into the grid is actually worth it (mostly depends on how many forms you have to fill, but you are usually also not paid enough). The main reason you want to have a solar panel on your balcony is to cover your own consumption. Add battery storage to it and you can be quite independent of the grid for a large part of the year.
@phoerious @Edent
The devil is, as usual, in the detail. If every smart meter is automatically configured to measure export then maybe we have a winner.
If you don't get paid for energy put into the grid then balcony solar looks like an expensive way to make very small savings for those who don't have a way to shift consumption to the middle of the day or to store the energy they would have exported.
Adding a battery to my existing 4.4kW(p) PV system would have saved <£70 last year. Not viable. -
If I'm reading this correctly this allows consumers to feed solar into the grid. Do they get paid for doing it or is it just a case of if the sun's shining you might want to put your washing on?
Detail to check — the circuit breaker protecting the socket you plug in to.
Black-box Inverter between solar panels and socket gives safety.
UPS battery-boxes on solar-panel side of inverter can be used to store excess energy. Off-peak mains might be used to top-up those batteries hut there are AC <—> DC energy losses. USB outputs on these batteries can feed useful lights, tablets, and mobile phones.
I think I have all this right, but CHECK.
Reports from USA suggest fossil-fuel lobbying of legislators is happening there. Be alert! Britain needs lerts.
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If I'm reading this correctly this allows consumers to feed solar into the grid. Do they get paid for doing it or is it just a case of if the sun's shining you might want to put your washing on?
@OneInterestingFact @Edent
With 800Wp of panels this isn't a very important factor.
With a solar diverter to an immersion heater, even less so - make hot water.
With a battery even less less so. The amount of energy escaping is going to be trivial.But I think generally the expectation is that you just plug it in and use it.
#solar #balcony #electricity -
Brilliant news! The UK's Labour Government are going to make "plug in solar" legal.
Grab some panels from Lidl, hang them off your balcony or out your window, plug them in to your mains. Done!
Government to go "further and faster" in becoming energy secure
The Energy Secretary outlines measures to protect consumers and make Britain energy secure.
GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
@Edent Temu entered the chat. -
@Edent excellent news if it turns out they don't screw it up.
but.
"plug it into your mains"? really? how does that work?
edit: even if it does work — how would i know it was doing anything?
edit^2: the relevant search term here is "G98". i'm still very confused what the hell this is, but it is a thing, in some areas.
@fishidwardrobe @Edent
3 pin plug!
Potential for danger, but empirically it has remained potential. -
@raymaccarthy
What do you mean "a sop"?Balcony solar works really well in Germany. Even without a battery, this will offset people's energy costs by letting them use solar in the day.
@Edent
I've halved our electricity bill and have the 12 panels on two shed roofs.
No contractor or law change needed because it's Solar UPS. No power fed to grid.
two systems: Bluetti & their proprietary batteries and Victron with a generic battery (both LiFePO4),.
Runs 3 freezers, fridge, internet/pcs, TV, satellite & some lights.
We'd save more with a smart meter as we then could charge at cheap night rate and use that during the day. Solar only is only good for the summer and no security.
