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‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

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Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#261

Post by Panzer04 »

pjscott wrote: post #166
vrganj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be spending euros or dollars at all. The economic system is the ideology holding us back.

If money ever starts looking particularly illusory, try thinking in terms of the underlying resources that markets allocate. That's 'resources' viewed as expansively as possible, everything from the specialized labor-hours of people who know how to do quality control on bulk-manufactured photovoltaics to the ore used to make ball bearings in the factory all the way to the guy in charge of managing a grain elevator th…

Sadly a lot of people look at our economic system through an ideological lens - how it allocates resources is, to them, driven by political, cultural and social motivations. The fact that by far its most important purpose is resource allocation is often completely ignored.

Rising petrol prices here in Australia draw criticism against fossil fuel wholesalers - as if they are doing this solely to screw over Australians. The fact that these high prices are caused by an actual lack of resources and that the higher prices are driving a reallocation of resources to those who need them most (ie. most willing to pay for them) is not on the radar for many.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#262

Post by radialstub »

Panzer04 wrote: post #261
pjscott wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If money ever starts looking particularly illusory, try thinking in terms of the underlying resources that markets allocate. That's 'resources' viewed as expansively as possible, everything from the specialized labor-hours of people who know how to do quality control on bulk-manufactured photovoltaics to the ore used to make ball bearings in the factory all the way to the guy in charge of managing a grain elevator th…

Sadly a lot of people look at our economic system through an ideological lens - how it allocates resources is, to them, driven by political, cultural and social motivations. The fact that by far its most important purpose is resource allocation is often completely ignored. Rising petrol prices here in Australia draw criticism against fossil fuel wholesalers - as if they are doing this solely to screw over Australians…

> The fact that these high prices are caused by an actual lack of resources and that the higher prices are driving a reallocation of resources to those who need them most (ie. most willing to pay for them) is not on the radar for many

Careful using words like "need". The resources are allocated to the economically most efficient sectors. Since if you are economically efficient, your profits are higher and can afford to pay more than others.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#263

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #224
hamdingers wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NEC doesn't specify GFCI breakers, it merely requires receptacles in certain areas have GFCI protection, and accepts GFCI breakers as one way to provide that. The conventional practice in the US is still to use GFCI receptacles rather than breakers.

Right, but the NEC spec arc fault as well (i've only seen this on breakers). recepticals are cheaper and otherwise just as good.

[deleted]

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#264

Post by globular-toast »

jamescrowley wrote: post #236
t0mas88 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a real safety issue with plug-in solar panels and plug-in batteries. Things go wrong if other loads are on the same circuit, which is almost unavoidable with a plug-in system. Consider a circuit in a home, designed to carry 16A like a common EU/UK circuit, protected by a 16A breaker. Then plug in solar or a battery that delivers just a small 10A. Now in case some other thing on that circuit draws 26A, the br…

My understanding is that is why they are limiting to 800w (~4A) at least in the UK's BS 7671 Amendment, which they consider well within the designed safety margins.

Ah yes, the good old "let's eat into the safety margins". This is why our motorways no longer have hard shoulders. OK, so cars break down less now. What justification is there for eating into electrical margins? The wiring in people's houses isn't getting any younger. And we still use the ridiculous ring system even in new builds in 2026.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#265

Post by helterskelter »

password4321 wrote: post #172
oliwarner wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British industry and standards bodies think this is an unsafe plan. Of course they would because it's work being taken away from them but it would be allowing people to plug generators into ring finals with unidirectional breakers. It's not even guaranteed that the circuit is protected by anything newer than fuse wire or an MCB. No guaranteed earth leakage detection. No guaranteed surge protection. Relying on the che…

I am not very well versed on this topic but I believe the balcony solar products market one of their safety features as "anti-islanding protection". Personally I wonder what happens if multiple balcony solar systems are connected... can each still tell when the grid is down since the other power source is active? https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/anti-islanding-and-smart...

Hobestly solving these sorts of problems could be a huge business.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#266

Post by izacus »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #129
izacus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same kind of problem solving that thought making self driving Teslas is the solution for infrastructure problems.

I'm fairly certain securing one's household's access to energy independent of rate increases triggered by a combination of aging infrastructure and data center power demand doesn't have a lot in common with tech bros attempts at reinventing trains badly from first principles but I'm open to hear the argument. Care to unpack that?

Easily: it's techbros again forgetting that an expensive asset only wealthy can afford isn't a solution to a mass scale infrastructure problem. And again, just like with Tesla bros, nothing about household solar is independent and requires infrastructure to support it - which, just like with trains, isn't going to get required investment because you're dreaming about individual investment.

Like you say, I want trains - proper infrastructure supported renewables, not Teslas - home individual infra only affordable by wealthy individuals at the cost of shared infrastructure while lowering resilience because it still uses shared infrastructure.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#267

Post by dealfinder994 »

pjc50 wrote: post #8

Fairly boilerplate article, but the bit that is news is the UK balcony solar permitting. Better longread: https://solarenergyconcepts.co.uk/post/plug-in-solar-uk/ Government press release with a long list of pull quotes: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-make-plug-i... (I note that in the alternate universe where Ed Miliband became PM because he didn't eat a bacon sandwich, we could have had this a dec…

[dead]

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#268

Post by masklinn »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #74
pjc50 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it ever makes sense to switch to electric radiators. It might make sense to switch to a heatpump, but you need to avoid being hugely overcharged by the installers and there are flow issues if you have 8mm piping. This ROI calculator looks reasonable: https://ukcalculator.com/solar-panel-roi-calculator.html - note that it subtracts the install cost for you, so any case where the final figure is positive…

Well France did move to electric everything (cooking, hot water, heating) in the past thanks to ample nuclear electricity production (and possibly not too harsh winters). Unfortunately they let their nuclear programme decay and are struggling now (EU grid integration does not help)... I think a big part of the push to install heat pumps now is that it is understood that electricity production is in dire straights, ta…

> hot water, heating

Not really. Urban flats frequently got resistive heating (rather than heat pumps) but when France finally phased out furnace oil it phased in gas heating (again instead of heat pumps).

And EU grid integration was mostly a boon, at least to EDF, with the country able to export its large stable supply and arbitrage between its neighbours.

It largely missed its opportunity and should have ramped up electric use way more aggressively in the 90s. And built up research labs and industrial and practical knowledge in heat pumps and batteries tech.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#269

Post by bell-cot »

hamdingers wrote: post #219
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know the US equivalent terminology for a "ring final" ?

We would call it "a serious code violation." It's prohibited in the NEC and always has been, it's objectively less safe. From what I understand the UK allowed it because of a severe postwar copper shortage and it persists to this day because it's allowed and a bit cheaper.

> From what I understand the UK allowed it because ...

I'd say "severe post-WWII money shortage". After wartime expansion, the global copper industry could physically meet peacetime demands. But the UK was very close to national bankruptcy. And the Luftwaffe had turned an awful lot of their prewar housing into rubble. So - any cost that could be cut, was.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#270

Post by fc417fc802 »

aaronmdjones wrote: post #250
fc417fc802 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow you regarding unidirectional meters and electricity theft. How does that work?

Between the phasing out of analog meters (the latter half of the last century) and the introduction of smart meters (2010), a lot of electronic prepayment meters produced for the UK market would set a tamper flag if they detected power flowing backwards through them, as a proxy indication of an attempt at electricity theft. These meters will refuse top-ups in this condition, requiring you to contact your energy suppl…

I feel like the meter suddenly "breaking" is the substantially larger inconvenience. Presumably the supplier will raise an eyebrow at the flag, glance over the place, see the solar setup and get on with life. At least one would hope. They must have seen this a time or two by now after all.
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