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Twenty four US states are now considering legislation to allow small, plug-in solar power systems that connect directly into a wall socket. (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/energy@slrpnk.net

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I'm a little wary of plug-in solar in the US. Some of the bills propose allowing 1200 watt panels which can overload wiring depending on what else is on the circuit and how in the wall wiring is run. Limiting plug-in panel wattage to, say, 400 watts might be necessary

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[–] LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

As an electrical engineer in renewable energy, it's a lot more complicated than that unfortunately. To trot out the often-used water analogy, net metering is a bit like pumping water back into your water main and then billing your water utility for it. The grid isn't really designed to allow power to flow backwards and it causes all kinds of problems when it does. Distributed generation CAN work, but because of its challenges net metering isn't realistic. Even wholesale power prices aren't realistic, because utilities would much rather buy that power from conventional power plants. Requiring net metering or the market rate for rooftop solar is fine to promote solar, but it's a market distortion and at that point I would rather they just have a conventional subsidy.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

how about grid stabiliation though. like technically if you bought batteries you could buy low and sell high. I feel like encouraging that would be nice to.

[–] LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Yeah batteries are cool, especially if you've already got them (i.e. an EV). I could definitely see that happening. A real-time market for individuals/homeowners is a really cool idea, but people just have to be cognizant of the fact that in a pure free market the prices they get aren't going to be as good as the prices utility-scale generators get. To the current administration's credit while they did gut a lot of subsidies for renewable energy they left the battery ones intact (for utility scale). I'd like to see the same subsidies for individuals as well.