alt Hacker NewsSolar panels that plug into your wall
Comments
This may be a stupid question, but I've always heard to never plug a generator into an outlet - what makes these safe enough that you can?
How do these work when plugged in to only one of the split phases on a US-style 120 system? Because I'm a nerd, I know which legs of the phase go to which outlet in my house, but I don't expect everyone to pay attention to that. I assume something has to take that into account somewhere.
Perhaps also useful would be plug in batteries, especially if one has variable rates. Charge when cheap, discharge when expensive.
One constraint on these I've read is that if you have sources and sinks on the same circuit, you might overload the line without tripping the breaker at the box. If I'm understanding this correctly this has caused them to limit the power of plug-in solar to a fraction of what a single circuit could potentially carry.
I hope the next step for this is plug-in battery storage. All the on-grid battery hybrid inverters I can find in the USA are either single leg 120V or 12kW for $5k. I just want like 3kW dual-leg with support for a dozen kWh of batteries
If lightning strikes does the risk of fire increase with solar ac ?
Solar panels are getting cheap enough for grid hook-ups, installation and regulatory approval to become the bottlenecks.
Plug-in solar is suboptimal in many ways, but it does sidestep a lot of those hurdles. Not too surprised to see it on the rise.
Another thing that might be worth keeping in mind is that plug-in solar panels are often installed vertically - i.e. balcony solar. In which case the peak of the panel's generation is offset to the edge of the typical "duck curve". If it gets popular enough to affect the grid, it might get the solar-induced demand slump larger, but make the edges even sharper.
Would that make grid scale battery storage with its instant response even more important?