Solar panels that plug into your wall

sleepyguy

https://wallhop.io/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/enviro...

7e

This is fun, but utility-scale solar is far cheaper.

zanderwohl

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?

michaelrpeskin

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.

ACCount39

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?

theoreticalmal

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

bigwheels

https://archive.today/NEPz3

tdhz77

If lightning strikes does the risk of fire increase with solar ac ?

pfdietz

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.

rkagerer

Does this seem like a bad idea from a safety perspective? With fixed solar installs you're likely to find some kind of switch or labeled breaker to disconnect. The system is designed with a central "power in" that's (hopefully) obvious/proximate when you're standing in the breaker room. These things could be injecting power anywhere, so you need to know they're there (which may be less apparent than roof/field panels) and go around and pull the plug(s). Relevant to electricians, firefighters, etc.

lol_catz

My concern is what happens to grid stability as we replace synchronous generators, with their enormous rotational inertia, with thousands of grid-following inverters. They can all phase-lock to 60 Hz, but without enough inertia, what keeps that frequency stable during sudden changes in load or generation?

toppa33

A step closer to community-owned VPPs. Bring it on

writtenone

archived, no trackers: https://nonograph.com/solar-panels-that-plug-into-your-wall-...

bob1029

> The system tripped his apartment’s circuit breaker and shut off his computer several times, but a different inverter solved the problem. I think this will be your biggest practical issue in newer US construction. Arc fault circuit interrupters are now code for any wiring in living spaces. They can be quite sensitive to weird switching loads (and sources). I was forced to swap an AFCI for a normal breaker in my last home. The power supply in my workstation triggered the detection heuristic in the AFCI about once a day. I could cause an outage on demand by running certain workloads.

MiroslavPokorny

Do these require a battery or do they include some sort of capacitors to smooth the power ?

MgB2

I really don't understand why most people here act like this is some weird unproven and unsafe technology. This is literally a solved problem. They are everywhere in Germany and it's no issue. The inverters follow the grid AC and shut off their output if they are disconnected or unplugged, so the plug is never "hot". The power they input into your home wiring/ the power grid is limited to 800Watts to not overload any installation. And the power meters know not to run backwards if you happen to feed power into the grid. If you want, you can add battery storage that follow the same rules but let you save excess power during the day to feed into your home at night or during demand spikes (washing machine, ...). The setups are dirt cheap and pay for themselves in about 1-3 years in saved electricity costs

tiku

I have two sets of these..very cheap if you order it on Amazon yourself. And very easy to connect. The big panels are a bit of a hassle because of the size, not the weight.