Plug-in solar panels are now legal in Great Britain!
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@neil 2-3 years ago, we paid 700€ for the same thing. Not sure we’ll ever break even.
On the other hand, it’s the least stressful technology I’ve ever used. Screw in the fasteners, hang the panels, plug them in, and you’re done. Takes an hour, if that much.
From then on, you just get a bit of free power whenever there’s enough sun. No further effort needed.
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Plug-in solar panels are now legal in Great Britain!
Hopefully this reduces the barrier to people getting solar at home.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/households-can-save-as-plug-in-solar-panels-come-to-market
@neil very annoying this excludes battery storage! But finally some positive movement.. hurrah!
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@neil Thanks for the info.
Dumb question to more knowledgeable people: how does the "plug in" bit work?
Does it mean the solar panel has sockets that you plug your devices directly into (and your Xbox turns off if the sun goes in, assuming no battery), or that it plugs in to your domestic mains and reduces the power draw from the external grid?
Panels --> inverter --> plug inverter into a mains socket.
Quite incredible really, IMHO!
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Plug-in solar panels are now legal in Great Britain!
Hopefully this reduces the barrier to people getting solar at home.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/households-can-save-as-plug-in-solar-panels-come-to-market
@neil
We worked out it would take 8 years to pay back. Saving us £70 to £100 a year. We are late 70s early 80s in a listed housing estate -
@neil and.... Cue scare stories about "lidl burned down my home" funded by oil and Russia...
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@neil No certified kit is on sale yet.
@geoffl @neil https://www.cityplumbing.co.uk/c/product/renewables/solar-pv/plug-in-solar-pv/c/1870010/ - admittedly it's a pre-order, albeit with hopefully quite a short lead time.
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Panels --> inverter --> plug inverter into a mains socket.
Quite incredible really, IMHO!
@neil @julianlawson of course the ideal solution would be to also have a battery between the inverter and mains socket, so you could store the energy you generate but don’t use. But those need to be installed and certified by a qualified sparky (and also benefit from higher capacity panels and inverter).
At least this means a much lower barrier to entry for many people, as it’s relatively safe to self-install with the 800W cap.
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@geoffl @neil https://www.cityplumbing.co.uk/c/product/renewables/solar-pv/plug-in-solar-pv/c/1870010/ - admittedly it's a pre-order, albeit with hopefully quite a short lead time.
They claim 16 days for collection, 20 for delivery. Other cheaper sellers like https://www.electrical2go.co.uk (not a recommendation as I've never done business with them) are saying 2nd Oct.
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@geoffl @neil@scare.me.uk @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk
That's not going to stop Amazon and AliExpress selling dodgy kits to the uninformed (or the partly-informed)@MikeFromLFE @neil@scare.me.uk @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk
Well that's another problem. They should be held accountable for all the dangerous stuff they allow to enter peoples homes. Amazon, Temu and AliExpress have all been selling cadmium laced jewelry through their platforms.
"In some laboratory tests, individual jewelry items were found to consist of up to 70% cadmium."
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Plug-in solar panels are now legal in Great Britain!
Hopefully this reduces the barrier to people getting solar at home.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/households-can-save-as-plug-in-solar-panels-come-to-market
@neil
I so needed this good news today
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@neil @julianlawson of course the ideal solution would be to also have a battery between the inverter and mains socket, so you could store the energy you generate but don’t use. But those need to be installed and certified by a qualified sparky (and also benefit from higher capacity panels and inverter).
At least this means a much lower barrier to entry for many people, as it’s relatively safe to self-install with the 800W cap.
@WiteWulf @neil @julianlawson @Slash909uk you could buy a plug-in EcoFlow battery online and hook the panels in it, then just plug the battery in any socket. No need for electrician.
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It may be helpful but only if you can include batteries in the system.
Looking into the options now
The most useful thing about batteries would be to keep stuff running during a power cut.
But as far as I know, none of the current, fixed or plug-in, installations allow this.
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The most useful thing about batteries would be to keep stuff running during a power cut.
But as far as I know, none of the current, fixed or plug-in, installations allow this.
> keep stuff running during a power cut.
This was a key criterion for our solar installation. It involved extra expense - an island box - but I reckon that it was worthwhile, even though, at the moment, we have few power cuts, and those we have are of short duration.
I have kept the UPSs on my servers, so this is in addition to those.
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> keep stuff running during a power cut.
This was a key criterion for our solar installation. It involved extra expense - an island box - but I reckon that it was worthwhile, even though, at the moment, we have few power cuts, and those we have are of short duration.
I have kept the UPSs on my servers, so this is in addition to those.
How does that work? Is it a separate power supply to some or all of the appliances?
I did do a web search for "island box" but the results seemed mostly to relate to food and holidays and I quickly lost the will to live.
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How does that work? Is it a separate power supply to some or all of the appliances?
I did do a web search for "island box" but the results seemed mostly to relate to food and holidays and I quickly lost the will to live.
I am not quite the right person to be able to describe this in detail, but in essence, the mains feed, and the line out of our battery, both go into this "island" box, and, on the other side of the island is our consumer unit, and thus our home's electrical system.
If the mains stops, then as long as there is charge in the batteries, power goes through the island.
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Plug-in solar panels are now legal in Great Britain!
Hopefully this reduces the barrier to people getting solar at home.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/households-can-save-as-plug-in-solar-panels-come-to-market
@neil American here. Plug-in solar panels are a thing!?!? WHAT!?
Home solar around here is a $10,000+++ investment in whole-home inverters, kneeling and begging the power company to allow it, monitor it, and to pay the offset — or nothing at all.
Sincerely, I had no idea this incredibly obvious and superior approach was a thing at all.
Gods, this place is a shithole.
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@John_Loader @john @neil that's what I thought, are they even going to still be working that long?
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I am not quite the right person to be able to describe this in detail, but in essence, the mains feed, and the line out of our battery, both go into this "island" box, and, on the other side of the island is our consumer unit, and thus our home's electrical system.
If the mains stops, then as long as there is charge in the batteries, power goes through the island.
The problem, as I understand it, is that the house supply needs to stay synchronised to the grid because if that were not so, when the mains comes back on, it would all end badly.
Problem is, if the mains is out, there's nothing for the home installation to synchronise against.
My guess (and it's only a guess) is that the island box isolates the house supply from the mains in the event of a power cut. Then, when the mains comes back, it performs a synchronisation of the house supply prior to reconnecting the mains from the grid. Probably all happens in milliseconds with minimal disturbance to the house supply.
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@John_Loader @john @neil that's what I thought, are they even going to still be working that long?
@Tattooed_Mummy @John_Loader @john @neil the panels themselves, almost certainly - solar panels have an official lifespan of nearly 30 years and even after that it's loss of percentages in efficiency not sudden death. The inverters and controllers might have a shorter lifespan though, and I'd be very wary of anything that needs a proprietary app to operate
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