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oliwarner 6 hours ago

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 cheapest inverters to sync frequency accurately. And

I have more faith in German standards and work ethic than our own.

fnordpiglet 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I find it interesting because often the best way to achieve a safe building code is to learn by allowing with basic guard rails and iterating as things happen. This isn’t ideal for the rare individual impacted by the “things happening,” but collectively we refine and iterate. Our current standards weren’t arrived at by navel gazing - we got the codes we have by experience. It’s hard to realize that from the present that you can’t reasonably learn without doing and by constraining without learning prevents growth and learning.

zdragnar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Are there lessons on safety that need to be learned here? We already know what the happy path looks like, and we've plenty of lessons on what the unhappy path will look like.

It isn't as if electric charge coming from balcony solar panels is some new magical-seeming type of electricity.

foxglacier 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Safety is statistical and depends on human behavior. Unexpected behaviors might appear. For example some places require a power outlet on kitchen islands because with out, people will use cords to the wall which creates tripping hazards.

Also, why do wires have to be fixed to joists every 300 mm? It's not about the electrons.

labcomputer 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

“Unidirectional breakers” aren’t a thing for AC circuits.

jonatron 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.bgelectrical.uk/uk/circuit-protection/devices/rc... Right there, both bidirectional and unidirectional breakers.

formerly_proven 39 minutes ago | parent [-]

It would be really interesting to know what's so special about these UK units that they can be "damaged" by being fed from the "wrong" side (as per some other article), considering that the only place where these behave like that is an island north of France.

hamdingers an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Not in the US, but in parts of Europe they effectively use AFCI/GFCI breakers for everything.

formerly_proven 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The situation in germany is essentially the same, but that's why net supply by these is limited to 800 W. I don't think anything changes w.r.t. earth leakage, why would the presence of the solar supply change anything from the RCD and fault point of views, respectively?

mytailorisrich 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Not expert but one difference is that in Germany the standard wiring is radial circuits with 16A MCBs while in the UK it's ring wiring with 32A MCBs.

So in the UK we have 2.5mm^2 wires in a ring on a 32A MCBs... Of course a 2.5mm^2 wire is rated ~20A so any issues with the ring (sockets still work since connected from the other branch) can burn the wire before the MCB trips...

formerly_proven 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The "standard" wiring is 1.5mm² on 16A MCBs which are rated to trip at 1.13-1.45x nominal current (so 18-23 A). So this is already mildly improper because you can pull elevated currents continuously and dramatically shorten the life of the insulation.

5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
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