The original (very generic) title):
Government to go “further and faster” in becoming energy secure
The Energy Secretary outlines measures to protect consumers and make Britain energy secure.
They are speaking of panels in the 800W range which you can just buy , mount in front of your balcony or on top of your carport, and plug into a wall socket.
These things are wildly popular in Germany. The do not generate a lot of power, but armotize in about three years and save real money. (Depending on how old the metering technology is, they can also make the power meter spin backwards, which I think is only fair considering how much households pay for kWh, compared to energy-hungry companies, which get most of the the massive cost savings from renewables but don’t pay for the necessary upgrade of the grid).
One big problem with plug in solar (or batteries) is that they deliver more power than should be available, behind the fuses.
With an 800W panel, an appliance could draw about 3.5A more before tripping the breaker, which can cause problems.
It’s not very likely, but it’s also not the case that governments are just reluctant for no reason. These things being installed poorly is also quite a problem, Germany has had more than a few smashing down from a balcony.
That’s why the power you are allowed to install is limited. And also why they shut down without powet in the socket. The safety issue was a big concern and it took years of deliberation in Germany to get to that point. You can be assured that if something like that is allowed in Germany, it is pretty safe. The safety bodies are watching these issues with hawk’s eyes, and these are professionals which know what they are doing and which move things into a good direction.
Honestly I am surprised why these things are not much more popular in any region where you need climatization in summer - they deliver power when it is most needed, and grids are at risk to fail.
The UK though has the added spice of the uniquely unsafe ringmain wiring standard, in which 24A cable in the wall is protected by a 32A breaker at the distribution panel. It’s only “safe” if the load is evenly balanced around the ring, and the ring isn’t broken (that’s why UK plugs need fuses in them - to make it harder to severely unbalance the ring by pulling 32A out of a single socket, and equally to try and protect the appliance cable if a short or similar tries to.)
I’ve not sat down with a pen and paper to work out how having a generator somewhere on the ring affects things - presumably the authorities have…
It’s probably okay, in the usual UK buildings, for the first 24h you’d be cooking the dampness out of the wall.
800W is just 3.5A so probably can be managed
All solar systems do that, which is a good thing! It prevents lots of dead powerline workers. But that’s not the only reason, solar converters need to “tune” their AC frequency to that of the grid. No grid? Nothing to match. No power.
It’s also why, if you want a stand-alone system, you don’t just need a really big breaker between your house and the grid, but also a different type of converter entirely.
That’s a persistent myth, and it drives me nuts every time I read it. If power line workers are working on something that is supposed to be dead, they treat it as live and work it with hot sticks until they have bonded all the phases together and to ground. This is done both at the point of disconnect and where the work is actually being done.
Even if they didn’t do this, your little inverter is trying to backfeed the entire grid. The load it sees is indistinguishable from a dead short. Your inverter would overload and trip offline, even if it wasn’t watching the grid voltage and frequency.
There just isn’t a special risk to power line workers.
Hmmm, I’m not an electrical engineer, and really not a line worker, but I do workplace safety for a living. I was sure you’re wrong, but it is indeed not listed anywhere in the sector’s risk inventory here. I stand very corrected.
There is a generic “Make the site safe from both ends” risk mitigation though, and it makes sense that you take the same measures no matter what the source of the potential risk. Doesn’t matter if the cause is “all the solar panels” or “Some absolutely moron did things wrong several decades ago” or just plain “shit broke yo”.
Then again, it is cultural tradition to let things fall of a balcony in Germany.