this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
127 points (99.2% liked)
Wikipedia
5064 readers
261 users here now
A place to share interesting articles from Wikipedia.
Rules:
- Only links to Wikipedia permitted
- Please stick to the format "Article Title (other descriptive text/editorialization)"
- Tick the NSFW box for submissions with inappropriate thumbnails
- On Casual Tuesdays, we allow submissions from wikis other than Wikipedia.
Recommended:
- Use the search box to see if someone has previously submitted an article. Some apps will also notify you if you are resubmitting an article previously shared on Lemmy.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As someone working in power grid, this is quite horrible. There are reasons why PV panels are installed properly at the houses, which proper disconnects etc. If there is fire and this is just plugged in, there is no way to disconnect them. If there is maintenance on the electricity, it can be danger to the electricians, because even if you disconnect the mains, there is still power.
Also these panels had very poor cyber security, their IoT platform had a bug that anyone could control them remotely in masses. Bad actor could have caused serious issues in grid level with them.
These are literally certified to stop producing power under those circumstances. This isn’t the same situation as old solar installations.
I thought so too. Watched a review on youtube. The properly made ones got all the safety stuff. It turns off if the mains goes out, even if you got multiple of them (they put a signal on top of the sine). They are even limited to like 800W so you can plug them in anywhere without risk of fire, unless you plug like 3 in one outlet.
I still don't fully trust them but they are safer then they look. Ofc they come with a lipo battery.. but it's at least not that big of one. I'd rather they come with salt or lead batteries.
The bigger concern is the pannels themselves. A flying glass sheet is not safe. Then again many fix stuff themselves already, and not many die...
The funny thing about the feed cutting out when the mains are out is that if there's a power grid failure because too many solar panels are feeding the grid, you end up without power. It's happened to us a bunch of times.
Those DC/AC converters cut off within milliseconds if something fishy is happening on the AC side. And the cyber security is a matter of how well or stupid you manage your network.