Installing solar panels on your home or business is common in many European countries. But they really come into their own during energy crises.
“If you’ve got a solar roof on your home and you’ve got a battery then, depending on how much energy you can generate, you are substantially insulated from importing electricity,” explains Matthew Clayton, CEO of UK-based Thrive Renewables.
Dynamic tariffs are becoming more common in Europe. This is where the price of electricity varies throughout the day and night, with costs going up during peak periods, like dinner time, when households are using more.
This means that if you store up solar power during daylight hours, when the sun is at its strongest, then you can use that energy, rather than drawing it from the electricity grid, during the most expensive periods. “Your relationship with the grid is totally changed,” says Clayton.
Colleagues, users of Lemmy, please do not downvote this poster. Most solar power installations in use today are grid-following, so it’s correct to point out: if the grid drops, most solar inverters stop. Your average Huawei is not capable of operating in island mode. It needs a reference frequency to follow.
On most days, this is not a problem. The operator of the electrical grid will do everything to keep it up.
However, it’s a real risk if your electrical grid should get bombed, or pelted with ice rain.
Myself I have a different kind of a solar power system, and it’s not commonplace. It’s easy and doable, there is plenty of instruction available, but it’s less profitable.
panels -> DC -> charging controllers -> DC -> interrupter -> battery bank -> balancers and fuses -> still DC --> local consumers, among them an inverter --> finally some AC --> possibly the grid
To get a safe system, ask a specialist or learn about balancers, interrupters and fuses. Everything is DIY-able with a willingness to learn. Avoid dangerously high voltage if you aren’t certified to work with electrical power.
Do you have a pointer to such DIY home solar? I was planning to build my next system from Victron components, but this could be an interesting alternative.
Do you have any directions where to go for this, traveler?
It depends on the country one lives in, because to connect equipment to the grid, it has to be certified in that country.
As a good starting point, I would recommend to look at inverters sold as “hybrid inverters”, especially if the manufacturer advertises “off-grid” capability with automatic switch-over.
Here is one, from the manufacturer whose devices (older versions, no longer manufactured) I use. There are many others. If the user’s manual explains the process of automatic switch-over to off-grid (island) mode, then the inverter will provide autonomous power in case of grid collapse.
https://maximumsolar.online/product/hybridv2-6048/
…and here is another one, from a different company. Anything that becomes autonomous upon loss of grid freqency (disconnects from the grid and leaves only sensors to read its status) and then gracefully handles the return of grid frequency (does not connect before synchronization has been achieved).
https://www.qoltec.com/product/qoltec-hybrid-solar-inverter-off-grid-24kw-80a-mppt-sinus
Thanks! I’m in SW desert USA, on a large piece of land so I was thinking of just putting on the a scaffold structure on the ground instead of on the roof. In the past looked at the ability to put panels over my small garden to act as a shade, but I think the structure needed to hold them would be prohibitively expensive.