Title reads like at ad, but this is a new way to reach energy independence. I actually have a small EcoFlow device and it’s pretty good for the price.
I hope this tech can be made available in the US soon.
Title reads like at ad, but this is a new way to reach energy independence. I actually have a small EcoFlow device and it’s pretty good for the price.
I hope this tech can be made available in the US soon.
What the actual fuck?
Disqualified.
First part is classic stuff right?
Yeah. My grandfather (former electrician and electrical inspector) had a specific outlet he’d plug a gas generator in to back feed power into the house. This was in the 80s and 90s.
He also pointed out that he turned the main off so it did not back feed into the grid and power lines that a lineman is expecting to not be live.
From the article:
But isn’t a power outage the time you need it?
I think its more that you can supplement you normal power draw so your electricity bill isint so high
Then you can just use the sockets already present on the device.
Transfer switch is the proper tool for this and is a fairly simple install.
Yeah my parents house had an rv/generator hookup and it had a huge bar across both the breakers so power could only flow in one direction. If you hooked up a generator it would cut the house off from the mains.
Your grandfather’s extra outlet for the alternate feed was the other half of a switch that flipped over when the mains power died. It shuts off the power connection to the house by flipping over and ensures no power goes back over the line, among other things. We have these - albeit the size of a washing machine - in really big datacenters.
If you’re gonna do dumb shit, do it smart
Yes as your granddad points out, you can’t just plug a power source into any old outlet at any time. Selling a system like this on Amazon to apartment dwellers seems to encourage just that behavior.
You cannot plug in any old power source, but you can with special micro inverters.
Thanks for the info, very interesting!
I wonder if just plugging a power source in a socket would work in a more modern setting?
Had all electricity redone last year, there was some crazy stuff from the fifties, a hot line going everywhere, just plug into it and ground it, power everywhere 😵💫. Guess I could have plugged some power in anywhere (cutting off the mains).
Now there are differential and fuses for every applience etc.
If you want to power your house independently from the grid, your house has to be independent from the grid.
Anything where you sell your excess power back to the grid is in tight cooperation with the grid operators.
Standard house wiring is not set up to accommodate back feeding the grid nor independently powering.
So you will need a changeover switch professionally fitted if you want an independent power source, or your solar panel installers will fit the appropriate equipment to back-feed the grid.
Anything else will likely involve deaths, fires, broken equipment, criminal prosecution, insurance invalidation and all that nasty stuff.
For clarity, if you do a stupid job at your DIY solar installation and it burns your house down, that is likely a covered cause of loss. There isn’t a policy exclusion for stupidity, unfortunately.
There may be an exclusion for the panels themselves since you could argue that improper workmanship was the proximate cause of loss, but the ensuing damage would likely be covered.
A similar scenario would be an improper plumbing repair flooding your house. Insurance won’t pay to redo the plumbing that was wrong, but it will pay to fix the water damage.
As your own story shows, even in today’s modern times, there is planet of aging wiring still out there and in use.
If you’re asking whether it’s possible to build a home that can work this way, it’s been possible forever and it doesn’t require anything fancy, just a properly rated input outlet (not the same as a regular old bedroom wall plug) and a switch to disconnect from the mains so you aren’t electrifying the grid while workers are repairing it. Whole house generators have been a thing forever. You just have to take some elementary precautions. You don’t just plug some dynamo you bought off Amazon into any old bathroom outlet and say “tada!”
I’m also against proprietary systems but is there an open alternative?
That happens quite a bit in a lot of areas. It sounds stupid but your toaster does not care where the electricity it is using comes from.
As long as the sine waves are in sync with each other then you have nothing to worry about.
It’s probably not standard in America because the technology is newer and the regulations haven’t caught up.
2 problems….
If you forget to turn off the mains, it could really make a lineman unhappy.
Most of these setups require a reprimand dangerous “ suicide cord”
I know enphase micro inverters have “anti-islamding” tech that disables output when they lose grid connection. I would expect any reputable manufacturer to also have the same tech.
I don’t expect that for backup generators, but the proper way for them is via a transfer switch. You can wire in a properly made cable instead of a suicide cable. The transfer switch would prevent the inlet connector to the house from ever being live. (And since it is a proper cord from the generator, there would be no exposed ends coming from it.)
I agree on all points, but honestly I’d be pretty upset if I got a solar setup that didn’t work when the power was out haha
There is still a solution for that, solar + battery. I would love to have one myself, but solar alone can be a bit expensive on its own.
Sure, but this solution isn’t that.
Yes it is if you read the article, that’s exactly how he had it set up, and then you just have to manually move the battery where power is needed. You just can’t use your wall outlets when there’s an outage.
A battery is ~$8300 - 10k. It’s amazing how many places will try to charge $16k.
48v 100ah battery with Bluetooth BMS built in is around 700$ on ali express… Slightly more direct from Amazon in the USA if you want it fast. Will store close to 5kwh which I guarantee you beats out this solution. Of course you’d still need to buy the grid sync inverter (available in many places) as well as a solar mppt charger and solar cells. Still will come below this cost - or you’ll simply blow by the capacity of what you would have paid for this solution. But gotta have the old noggin on straight to do it yourself.
If it was that easy to do it right, you’d have small businesses offering to do it for thousands, instead of the current going rates, which is tens of thousands.
A LOT are like that though. They just get you a smaller bill by sending power bank to the grid, rather than making you grid-independent.
Yeah this is not an emergency backup at all. It’s an attempt to add some local storage to the grid and lower your bill. Everything about it is wrong for a power outage. I’m SURE they make this clear on the box!! ;D
The first problem is solved by line sensing technology. If there is not power coming in and off of the switch then the inverter will not pump energy back into the system, at least on the ones that are not $12 cheap Chinese junk off of taobao.
And rather than suicide cords they generally have an IEC connector (standard rhombusy shaped computer power connector) on one end and a normal prong on the other.
But you are right that it is dangerous and not recommended to anyone, especially the people that are not smart enough to take the appropriate concerns and considerations into mind before using it.
I’d be super disappointed by owning a solar cell and not being able to use it during a power outage.
That’s a pretty standard issue with grid tied solar systems. You save a lot of money by not having batteries, but when the neighborhood goes down you go down with it.
Plus you don’t want to be pumping electricity into a downed power system, you could actually end up hurting a line man who is working on the system.
However, and both of these issues can be resolved by adding in a generator and a whole house cut off system.
In a power outage scenario, all you would have to do is throw the crossover switch and crank the generator. The generator would produce enough energy to reactivate the solar system.
Yea with solar and a transfer switch you only need a small battery powered inverter to kick on the solar juice
No need to run a generator when the sun is out
You’re also likely to repeatedly trip whatever breaker that outlet is connected to unless it’s a big one like you’d have for a central AC unit, but then you’d likely also know enough to have a proper transfer switch.
This is only supplying like 3.5 amps, so not going to trip any breakers.
Yes, but not at 800W
Whole house generators have been around for a long time and they are usually wired, at the junction, into a few specific lines to essential appliances like refrigerators because it’s hard to produce as much current as the grid on your own, and you want to spend what you can generate on site wisely. Trying to power your whole house through some bedroom outlet is not going to work well. Your TV will sit there sucking some of that power listening for your remote to turn it on while your lights will flicker and your fridge will chug chug chug and not stay cold.
Proprietary, overpriced, with flashy visuals and apps, and a massive marketing budget. They’re the Apple of solar generators.
Why?
Because proprietary.
You realise it’s new tech and probably needs a proprietary connection?
Did you disqualify ebikes too when they appeared?
LOL, no, pretty much nothing ever “needs” a proprietary connection these days. Certainly not a fucking plain old power connection for a solar panel!
It’s not just for the panel though, it’s for switching between feeding an outlet and supplying an appliance, looks pretty intelligent to me
But I live in the EU, if they make it proprietary for no reason, they’ll get told to fuck off rather quickly 😂
There are a TON of standardized power connectors available that enable compatibility with off-the-shelf parts. Seriously, just look on Mouser or DigiKey. The only reason for proprietary connectors in this case is to try to obtain vendor lock-in.