Source here with detailed information for each state in case you are interested in getting a balcony or window mounted solar system
Plug-in solar lets anyone generate free electricity — no roof, no permit, no contractor. A single panel on your balcony can meaningfully cut your bill, especially as rates keep rising.
Found it in this discussion: !https://slrpnk.net/post/39512229/22991609
Is it already legal in your country/state?
The term “plug in solar” makes me think I can simply buy a thing and plug it into my regular outlet to generate electricity. Does anyone have a link for this product or for more information? I have a decent space where I could put a couple panels, but I get list once you have to start cranking up the math.
There isn’t a banned category. I assume if it’s not legal it should be considered illegal?
That’s not how laws typically work. Everything not expressly declared illegal is legal by default. So that’s a legitimate question.
Question: why would this be illegal? Is there some risk I am unaware of?
Currently to have solar in the US, you need a permit from your electric utility. The process of granting that permit means utility engineering looks over your proposed solar setup, and determines if it will be safe for the grid if switched on.
Plug-in solar laws look to remove that permit process, but the engineering check still needs to be there so people don’t plug in random shit and put others at risk of electrocution during outages. That’s where UL steps in and requires all plug-in solar products to adhere to minimum safety standards.
Plug-in solar shifts the engineering burden from utilities to safety laboratories like UL. This means prosumers have an easier path to generating their own electricity, and utilities don’t get bogged down with small prosumers that are only interconnecting single or double digit kWac arrays.
Im Massachusetts the regulatory capture, assisted by neoliberals, requires large sums of the populations money to go to utility companies that are not happy to have their natural gas investments be less profitable.
Removal of the regulated steps to keep the grid safe for linemen when the power is out.
Currently solar connections need to be installed by licensed electricians so that in the event of a power outage the solar doesn’t feed in to the grid causing linemen to get hurt/die
Plug in wouldn’t have that formal level of safety verification
Obviously the thought is the plug in panels would have safety features built in, but there’s added risk to the grid as a whole and the men/women who service them.
Hopefully plug in solar gets allowed everywhere quickly. Harvest that sun
Plugin has that safety to not put power on the wire if mains is disconnected…
At least, if you dont use cheap unregulated stuff that is.Edit: hell, it needs main to know the frequency and timings of the ac so it can be in sync
We are talking here about a solar generator that you plug into a household outlet to put power back onto the grid. Issues include:
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The wiring in your house almost certainly was not designed with this use in mind. It would be possible to exceed safe current limits of the wires in your walls which might start a fire.
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In the event of a line failure, simply plugging a power source into a wall socket in a home can energize the grid from the load end, which could do all kinds of wacky things including injure linemen. The solution here is a non-grid forming inverter. That is, it can’t make up its own 60Hz sine wave on its own, it can only match one that is already on the lines.
#1 can be especially important in places like the northeast US where some houses still have 100 year old knob & tube wiring. When we bought our house in a Boston suburb 10 years ago it still had some live knob & tube. Our insurance company required us to remove it all & replace it.
Traditional generators/battery banks can do this too, I’ve read too much about back feeding the grid and linemans concerns. Or worse the horror stories.
I don’t see how it’s any more or less dangerous than using a suicide plug to back feed a house circuit from a generator. What most people don’t know to do is kill the main breaker and or the one for the circuit you’re going to power.
Here come all the electricians to tell me what I already know! I haven’t done this since I was a renter, I obviously wouldn’t do this in the house I own.
that’s just it - it is as dangerous when done wrong. backfed downed wires are a real thing and danger.
It’s also illegal and unsafe to plug a generator into a wall outlet with a suicide cord. There’s a reason they’re called “suicide cords”, there’s a reason cable genders are the way they are, the load end of a suicide cord will have hot exposed prongs, which is hella dangerous.
Plugging in a generator like that is probably going to be done during a power outage, so yeah it makes sense to throw the main breaker, even if you are doing something dramatically stupid. That’s if you remember to do it. These balcony panels are meant to generate a small amount of power to lessen your electric bill. You’re not going to power your entire house with a couple hundred watt solar panel. So you’re gonna have the main breaker on.
That’s actually another reason why it needs to be a non grid-forming inverter; because it’ll provide power to a male plug it’s gonna need to prevent users from being shocked while it’s in the sun and unplugged.
Now you’ll tell me I shouldn’t file down the bigger side of those stupid one way plugs!
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There is a risk if the wiring of your place is bad, or the wiring outside your place is bad, or if there is no protection against over current/voltage for your neighbours, or …
There is a lot of hurdles to be overcome, but in general we have tackled them all already.
For example, here it is only legal to produce 800W with plugin installations and the transformers need to be certified on sale ( not installation ).
That certification regulates what it should do if there is no power on mains ( = produce nothing ), that it should use mains to be in sync with mains power, that it should not produce more than 800W, and should not push in more power when voltage on mains is more than 6V over spec ( aka, 246V is ok but is the limit. Above that can causr damage ).Weve had solar for years now and a lot of the hurdles have been fixed. ( remember when at the start you could cause damage at your neighbours home because your panels raised the voltage too high? Good times )
Either case, even if i pay some money to put power back on the grid, every watt i generate is a watt i didnt pay in usage. Days like these my apartment fully lives of the 400W my plugin set generates during the afternoon
Yes, energy companies could make less profit!
BC Hydro is all excited for solar hook-ups because it means we can sell more to the US. Cheaper rates for locals more money for the province.
Interesting. I found the Canada one too.
why would it would be illegal at all?
It’s not illegal. Currently you need a permit from the electric utility to operate solar on your premise if you still want to be connected to the grid. You can also do off-grid solar, in which case you don’t need a permit at all since you’re not impacting the grid with your solar generation.
As soon as you want to interconnect your solar and turn it from off-grid to on-grid, that is when a utility permit is required. This gives the utility’s engineering department a chance to review your solar setup and determine if it will be safe in the event of a grid disturbance.
Plug-in solar laws look to shift that engineering review and permit process away from the electric utilities to safety laboratories like UL. If all plug-in solar products are required by law to have certain safety functions if they want to be sold as “plug-in” to consumers, then there’s no need for the utility engineering review as products must comply with UL requirements to be sold as “plug-in” devices.
What these laws do is make it easier for prosumers to generate their own electricity if they purchase the right equipment, while also freeing up utilities’ workloads by not having to review even the smallest kinds of arrays (think 10-20 kWac on the residential side vs 500-10,000 kWac on the commercial side). Should make everything smoother for everyone while promoting people’s right to sunlight and electricity generation from that solar access.
Safety concerns.
There’s a lot of regulation around the way that household circuit breakers are installed. Those regulations have been developed over decades of problems caused by electrical wiring. A lot of people died to produce things like the NEC. The rules are literally written in blood and fire.
Plugging an independent power source into an outlet to distribute to the rest of the home wiring bypasses a lot of the safety. It means there’s a live power circuit that is not controlled by the local breaker panel, or the building’s main circuit breaker, or anywhere beyond the device itself.
Among other things, this creates a hazard for firefighters. It means they can’t reliably cut off the electricity for a burning building, so they have to be more careful when entering the building (because there may be exposed live wires) and they may have a harder time putting the fire out if electric sparks keep reigniting it.
It’s not illegal. It just requires a permit.
