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Havoc 2 hours ago

The main risk factor is people trying to pump too much juice into a wall socket rated for a lesser current. Plus the connector needs to be male - shock risk. The combination of live and male is not generally something you see in households and people may not register that it’s something outside of normal household risk profile.

That plus bit of risk of things being energised that say a lineman thought would be out. This can be mitigated by using systems that only feed in when they sense it’s connected to the grid

SoftTalker 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Linemen will always ground a transmission line before doing any work on it, unless live work is authorized, and then other safeguards apply. They never assume a line is actually dead just because it's supposed to be dead; they always assume there might be a backfeed or other source of potential on the line.

The balcony solar rigs (at least the properly designed ones) don't energize the male connector until they detect that it's plugged in. And they de-energize it if the mains/utility power goes out.

DamonHD 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those risks are covered.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/plug-in-solar

jauntywundrkind 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Incorporate partially insulated pins to prevent access to live conductive parts

> Incorporate non-rewireable moulded plug fitted with a BS 1362 fuse not exceeding 5A

And anti-islanding, so it disables when the grid isn't live.

Seems quite reasonable. Also, like, this is a thing balcony solar is being done in lots of regions of the world now. Based on those parts of the world not burning down, not electrocuting people at scale, this is ipso facto all just a sad tired lot of ridiculous FUD.

bryanlarsen an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> This can be mitigated by using systems that only feed in when they sense it’s connected to the grid

Which are the only ones that are legal.