This is very interesting and helpful info! I guess my fantasy is that a standard electrical panel would eventually have a literal plug on it where you could plug a larger system in, just as you would an outlet in the balcony situation, and then it would I think be, using your word, in "front" of the "fuse" (using quotes because I'm not sure I have the behind/in front of language correct, and when you use fuse here in the states it would be a breaker, I guess, not an actual fuse). This solution would of course have to mitigate things like fire risk, or blowing up the house or grid itself. I'm just hopeful it's coming because I think the install rate would go through the, pardon me, roof.

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Kaliboy 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The post you replied to isn't fully correct. I'll tell you how you could do this in many ways that prevents the fuse problem.

There's 3 ways to run solar.

Grid tied, grid backed and off grid.

I live on a farm and am off grid. The solar inverter is my "utility". After the inverter I have my main breaker. The inverter makes 5 kW max at 230 volts, so my fuse is 5000/230 = 20 amps.

I'm outside the US, regulation is a suggestion here everyone ignores. So many many houses have solar panels here to offset grid costs ($0.60 per kWh).

The main way we do it is make it grid backed. This means the inverter creates power that is in no way mixed with grid power. It forms a microgrid within the home. All ac's are connected to this. This can be done in the electrical panel as its just rerouting wires to fuses.

So then you have your 20A fuse behind the inverter, and smaller fuses (which you should already have) to your house loads. Btw you guys run 110v so your fuses are probably double the rating of ours.

When you do grid backed a battery is nice, since it helps prevent using the grid when a cloud passes by, it forms a bit of buffer. A 5kWh battery already helps. At night the grid powers the loads.

Grid-tied is the one nobody here uses, so you can feed back to the grid. This involves complicated electrical stuff so you don't electrocute the line workers. Plus it gets complicated with split phases and such.

Not to mention utilities pay less than what they ask you for the same kWh.

In the case of balcony solar you can feed the inverter utility power and connect your AC to the inverter. It uses solar power first and takes the needed diff from utility.

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harmmonica an hour ago | parent [-]

Know you don't want to dox yourself, but .6 is... rough. Like super rough. Would love to know where this is, but no pressure. Thankfully you're not relying on it completely. And oh what I wouldn't give to know the incidence of deadly maybe very-damaging electrical fires there given your well put "regulation is a suggestion here everyone ignores." Because if the incident rate is no worse than here you can make some assumptions that the regulations here are overly burdensome. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that regulations are oftentimes written in blood; it's true in the case of electrical generation, distribution, installation, but it's also a glib way to stand in the way of solutions that improve peoples' lives.

	▲	Kaliboy 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think it's the reason why we ignore regulation. It's not really malice or greed, local government is just a mess. It takes months of waiting. And when we "break the rules" we consider the rules and break them in a way that minimizes our liability. Like the reason for the certified install is to protect the line workers. I live on an island, so that's basically my neighbours. Nobody wants them dead. Likewise nobody wants to go through bureaucratic hell. Solution: grid-backed installs that doesn't interact with the grid. Which any Juan or Pedro can do if you don't want to do it yourself. It runs around $200 to add a new "electric group" to your house. And to be fair the standard rate is 0.38 cents per kWh and some fixed rate. But the poor they force on the pre-paid package which has no fixed rate, but runs at that higher rate. And so when you can't afford to buy the electricity you end up in the dark without giving the utility any moral obligations. I live in the "Caribbean Netherlands", the largest island of the 3.

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locallost an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I imagine it could be done like thus, but it is not, there's no infrastructure like this, so it's a moot point. Balcony solar was allowed so it's a hassle free DIY solution. You also don't get any money for feeding into the grid, but because you save a lot of money on installation costs it's still worth it.