Green EnergyI'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
"now considering"? Bit late no? We've had that for over 10 years, up to 600W they don't need approval
https://www.esti.admin.ch/inhalte/pdf/MUB/Deutsch/Mitteilungen/2014_2013/2014-07_plug-play_d.pdf
How do it plug in? How easy is it to do it. Do you need an electrician or can you do it yourself? How is the risks from fires?
We're also late on implementing good public transport, having universal healthcare, 30 days off from work per year, and more! :D
It sucks.
I see all these articles about how data centers need more power and how the state is working on it and its like. Hey how about you allow all residences to paid the market rate for energy they add to the grid and sitpulate if its ever changed they have to grandfather in all current users. That would boost rooftop solar so fast.
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.
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.
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.
I live in SE MI. There are two things working against residential solar here.
First, in terms of peek sun hours it's just not a great proposition. Yay cloud cover and short winter days
More importantly, we no longer have net metering. If you generate surplus energy you can still sell it, but you sell it for below what you would have to pay it for.
see that is what im talking about. residential should buy and sell by the same hourly rate if they want to. If you don't want to sell you can opt out the hourly rate. again they would have to have the law say that if changed any current user gets to keep it grandfathered so anyone who buys panels won't lose it.
The article doesn’t even list out all the states! :( Welp, time to start researching it myself.
Im really excited for this because i have a porch outlet that im pretty sure is on a single line with my hvac unit that is pretty heavy duty. Of course I will need to be in a disposable income situation to get one of these.
Of course I will need to be in a disposable income situation to get one of these.
The prices I’ve seen for the simple plug-in PVs are terrible. I can only imagine it making sense on frequent road trips or camping, or perhaps in situations where you live in an apartment and have no rooftop real estate for proper panels.
that is the scenario. its about apartments and condos and such where you can't put them on a rooftop. Heck im not sure how townhome rules work but im betting you can't put it up on your share of the roof.
Any wiring can handle 10 amps. I don't understand why you think that's too much. We have really old wiring and it wouldn't be a problem.
Thanks for posting, this is awesome. Now do small wind too.
Small wind is horrible, the efficiency of wind is entirely based on the swept area of the blades. At scale it's great, but at household sizes it's just not worth the cost. Turbines and windmills are a 'Go big, or go home' situation as far as being cost effective. Solar, even with batteries, is more cost effective for household or mobile sizes.
There are some interesting new technologies hitting the market. They use vibration to extract energy, rather than rotation. This is a lot more efficient at small scales. While they are extremely situation specific, they can outperform solar for some areas, particularly in winter.
https://www.amazon.com/home-wind-turbine/s?k=home+wind+turbine
They said "small wind is horrible", not "I'd really like to spend money on small wind turbines that can't deliver what they promise, I wish I knew where to find some".
It's important to note that Europe has 220/240v by default so most household wiring is robust to higher wattages at lower amps.
The top amperage is typically about the same as in the US, actually, at least where I am: 15-16 amps. So we get 3000 watt kettles instead of 1500, and such.
See my other comment in reply to OP as to why this might be a bad idea.
That's a lot of down votes for someone who is right.
In Washington state, a labor union representing electrical workers and the Association of Washington Business, a regional business group, testified against the state’s plug-in solar bill. Neither responded to questions about their position.
Spokeswomen for Puget Sound Energy and Avista Corporation, two Washington State utilities that testified against the bill, said their companies had safety concerns about plug-in solar technology and were waiting to see how the issues are addressed.
Yeah I called PSE and asked about plug in solar. They said it was illegal to use on "their network". And they gave that same spiel. Safety. They should partner with someone to make safe balcony solar kits for Washington state homes and apartments.
No vision.
Back feeding power is always problematic. A proper system should detect and match the mains before providing power. Once they become normalised then lower quality kit will start hitting the market.
The problem comes when they have to do line work etc. The power is intended to only flow 1 way, so turning it off, and making it safe is easy. It only takes 1 dodgy plug in solar to deliver a lethal shock to someone working on the line. Even worse, it could suddenly appear either by being plugged in, or the sun coming out, so a tested safe line can suddenly become hot.
It's worth noting that fixed solar can also have this issue. However, it's a lot easier to regulate and enforce with fixed installs.
How do other countries handle this problem? Like China or countries in Europe?
It's also worth noting that some of the issues get a lot easier at 230VAC
We are effectively on twice the voltage. Since P=I^2 R the effective heating is quadrupled. This makes American wiring a lot more vulnerable to overloading than Europe or China.
I have a friend who works for the UK grid. He visibly winced when I mentioned the plug in back feeding systems a while back. They've had a few close calls with "off grid" setups being used on grid.
Apparently even properly installed solar is a serious problem, though that's more down to the sudden demand shifts it creates. It throws off their predictions and threatens grid stability at times.
I'm a big fan of solar, at all scales, btw. We just need to remember that the grid is not just a dumb system, it has a lot of active parts that were never designed or intended for use with microgeneration.
Could be an issue for older homes with 14g branch circuits, but honestly i dont see 1200 watts being much of an issue on 20A circuits with 12g wire. Code required pretty much all branch circuits to be GFCI or AFCI protected now as well. Obviously that doesn't mean anything for older homes that haven't been updated yet, but AFCIs will catch the problems. Almost too aggressively.
1200 watts is only 10 amps, and branch circuits are laid out much more sensibly now than in previous decades.
Idk, as long as the home isnt like a double-wide from the 70s it should be fine.
There are a lot of older homes with really messed up wiring.
I mean, yes. That's how I make my living, im an electrician. But once again, supplying 10 amps is really not a risk in the majority of cases imo
My big concern is that somebody plugs a panel in plus two high-amp appliances, like a space heater and a microwave, in a sequence that means they don't trip a breaker.
Microwave on a dedicated circuit above counter in kitchens and gfci protected per code
You're not putting a space heater on your kitchen counter
And once again youre supplying up to 1200w, not drawing 1200w. Any power supply system will just be matching the load being drawn
I really dont think this is the degree of a problem you think it is
No there is a real concern there. Suppose you have a daisy chain that goes breaker - PV panel - load. Say you have 20A draw on the load - enough to trip a 15A breaker, but the PV is providing 10A. In that case you only have 10A at the breaker, but your wires will be significantly over-current.
I think the issue is that, if you have a circuit designed and protected for X, then put Y solar in, you can get a situation where X+Y is flowing down some of the wires. It's more than they are rated for, but the breaker doesn't see it.
What matters is the differential. A breaker limits the input. E.g. to 16A. A plug in solar provides an independent input. E.g. 10A. Under certain circumstances, multiple loads, up to 26A total could exist on the spur, without the breaker being triggered. This could put up to 26A down some of the wiring of the spur.
Im not. Its obvious these things are not just being done with no thought or input. Im pretty confident anything passed could have likely been higher but they will put in large margins of safety.
I'm on board. It doesn't have to be perfectly idiotproof to be rolled out--nothing is ever going to be perfectly idiotproof and we're already being compelled to beta test things like Tesla's poorly-designed self-driving software for its ability to handle human drivers and AI companies' chatbots. Balcony solar has been in wide use in Europe, where many homes are much, much older than ours, for more than a decade now. We can look at their ideas, products, and safety standards and import and adapt them to meet our own needs pretty easily.
Fire safety is, of course, going to be critical. The way homeowners make decisions when they upgrade is like the Wild West out here, and not every system is going to work for every home. We can only do the best we can in the arena of safety, you know? We make a good faith effort to protect everybody as much as we can, but at some point, the homeowner needs to take responsibility for knowing what their wiring/electric situation is before trying to make big changes to it without an electrician. We lose a few houses every single year from people using turkey fryers improperly despite them having all the information they need not to do that.
One thing the article doesn't mention is the computerized station that comes with a lot of these balcony solar systems to ensure proper loading, prevent pulling too much power, and to make sure you're not feeding the grid when you need the power or pulling power from the grid when you don't need it. Kind of weird that they skipped over that important piece of fire safety and risk management. There's also a device called Ting you can get that plugs into your wall and notifies you of fire hazards and electrical problems. (It's completely separate from balcony solar; I got mine through my homeowner's insurance and they can be bought online.) Another thing that passing this legislation will help is developing a solid set of safety standards. Without the legislation, there won't be enough social or political pressure to do it and could slow future adoption down by years.
Given the strain power utilities are under with the AI bubble, it seems irresponsible that they're not pushing harder for this.
The problem isn't when it's done correctly, it's when it gets half arsed by cheap Chinese suppliers. A lot of the corner cuts are not easily detectable to layman consumers.
The biggest is matching protection. The solar needs to shut down within ms of an RCD going (RCDs take 30ms). Otherwise it could continue to shock a victim, or risk a fire.
The most insidious would be to stop any with an "Off grid" mode. Grid workers already fear generators being backfed during a power cut. It turns cold lines live, with no warning. Having a switch to get your lights and TV working again would be far too tempting to too many people.
Speaking of the grid. One of the biggest issues is grid instability. Solar can do offline VERY quickly. Micro solar is even worse for this. Without major upgrades on the grid, it's akin to having a small child "helping" you move heavy furniture up some stairs. In theory you're better off. In practice you spend more resources countering the chaos than you save.
My personal view is that all new homes should have power feed in capabilities baked in at the mains entry point. It can then have proper cutoff/cutover capabilities, from fully approved parts. No chance of Chinese cheap crap killing people. It also puts the breakers back inline with the power. Home solar (balcony or rooftop), battery backup, generators all can be fed in via a known safe method.
A quick way to stop the use of cheap and unsafe products is to introduce legislation that has safety standards and a certification body like UL that they have to meet before they can be sold.
I totally agree that we have to put in some serious effort to make this a safe and workable thing. I'm not on the libertarian side of things where it's like, "Pshh! Get the products out there and let the market figure it out!" because... I mean, geez, our housing situation is bad enough without burning down any more of them. But we do need the legislation to get us some movement. We need safe, reliable products that can at least compare with a first model year car in terms of operability and not perfection. We're more than a decade behind in this area, we're losing more ground by the day, our government is doing whatever illegal shit they can think of to try to stop it entirely, and we can't afford this.
I fully agree. It's the same over here in the UK.
The key is to get a (semi global) get of regulations in play asap. If China can't sell them, then they won't make the lower quality products. Unfortunately, getting them back out of circulation will be a LOT harder. The safety rules need to go in early.
What happens when electricians need to do work but the lines are energized by these? This is a genuine question. It seems like a really difficult problem to solve
In Germany, where these "balcony solar" devices have been approved for years and seem to be the most popular out of any country, the panels have all kinds of safety mechanisms. One of them is a mechanism that shuts of the power coming from the panel if it detects that line power has been lost. It seems that this is what would prevent it from shocking electricians working on lines that they think are unpowered. This article goes into details about the various safety mechanisms on these: https://balkon.solar/news/2025/03/17/how-does-plug-in-pv-in-germany-work/
The plug in systems aren't meant to provide power on their own, they're meant to supplement grid power and reduce energy costs for the purchaser. They don't provide electricity unless some is already detected on the line, for the exact reason you ask
We have a hard wired 6kW system and it also works the same way.
I assume unplug the solar? If the whole point is that it plugs into an outlet
There is a proposal in my state from 2025 that seems to have been referred to ENERGY, whatever that means, but it hasn't gone anywhere. Wtf does it take over a year to vote on these stupid bills.
which is listed the states but apparently it can't load the whole article without javascript. I find that hard to believe.
I love the idea. Scares the shit out of me.
I’m not as concerned with these things starting house fires, but I want to explain that away first. I’m a little weak on the science, but my understanding of how these work is that they attune to the grid frequency and voltage to deliver power at a slightly lower frequency than what is provided by your wall plug. This allows them to augment your home power use without refeeding power into the local grid. IIRC, if there’s no wall power, they only offer power through outlets on the devices themselves, vs through the wall plugs.
And, I think that the above safety feature will prevent over-amperage situations for in-house wiring loops, since the device cannot exceed the power delivery of the circuit it’s plugged into, when operating normally.
These things scare the shit out of me because the U.S. power grid is badly under-engineered. Before actual electrical engineers hunt me down and kill me, think of building a bridge. You can do that by just pouring a billion tons of concrete into a ravine. But building something that is material and budget conscious while being safe enough to avoid lawsuits is not what I’m getting at. (Think of the phrase “Anyone can build a bridge, but not anyone can build a bridge that barely stands.”)
It’s a feature, not a bug. Otherwise, power lines would be I-Beams and we’d have some sort of insane switching technology to isolate and shut off every single segment of the grid.
But we don’t! Homes are never disconnected from the grid unless specialized hardware is installed at the meter to disconnect them. (Which happens for distributed/co-generation scenarios.)
The existence of always connected power generation or storage sources as a potential threat vector is well known. In 2023, it caused a minor kerfluffle as several brands of EV chargers were shown to be easily hackable and as few as 300 of them could be used to take down a regional power grid. Not everyone can afford an EV, and usually those users are a tad more tech savvy. They generally are not buying third party chargers, anyway.
But the rate of adoption for these devices could be significantly higher. The law of averages being what it is, I think these pose a much higher threat to the grid from hacking. Everyone loves apps. No one thinks about security. They could easily exploited, rooted, and have their safety features disabled. Who needs 300 EV’s when you have 300,000 balcony chargers?
Funnily enough, these would be in high demand if the U.S. grid got fried. It would take years to undo the damage.
I appreciate your hesitation. I do think that we're gonna continue to see the shift in warfare to attacking civilians through infrastructure, like what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now by knocking out the power and heat to homes to kill as many vulnerable people as possible, and we make a much easier target than anything military exactly like you said. The sheer variability in people's views on personal security is enough to give a person with the drive and smarts a way in, never mind how they actually behave.
Caution is warranted, and so is starting to legislate and produce balcony solar products. The first model year of any new car is a stress test, and they take the problems owners have had and work to refine it. Similarly, I don't install a brand new operating system without at least one or two updates under its belt. 😅 We can do the same for balcony solar to harden it against hacking and improve safety, but I think it's valid to worry about whether or not the grid itself could cope with an attack. Like Jesus, would it ever suck to find out it couldn't after the fact!
You are vastly overestimating how much power actually gets generated by these panels.
Also, basically every assumption made in the first paragraph is incorrect.
Like I said, I’m weak on the science. I’m more of a computer person.
Most of what I know is based on either a Practical Engineering or Matt Ferrell video, but I’m interested in the topic, if a little too busy to dig deeply enough to get past the marketing. If you have a good info source on the matter, I’d love to check it out.
With that said, the first paragraph is not really applicable to my concern, which is that a grid connected panel + battery could be hacked. En masse, they could dump power onto the grid and fry transformers or take out substations. (Which smarter people than I have identified as a concern, re: EV chargers.)
Hm. Imprecise on my part.
The panels aren’t the concern. It’s stored energy in the battery that can be dumped onto the grid, along with the stored energy of other compromised systems.
The article I linked outlines a scenario like what I’m describing being possible with EV’s that have had their chargers hacked.
I am not an electrical engineer, but based on OP's description, it sounds like a solar panel that connects to an outlet in an existing circuit. Say you have a solar panel plugged into the first outlet on a 15-Amp circuit, with solar producing 1200 Watts of available power. Then you have a 10-Amp load plugged into the next outlet in the circuit, and another 10-Amp load plugged in further down the circuit. That 15-Amp circuit has wiring rated for 15 Amps. You have 20 amps of load, but the solar panel is providing half of that downstream from the circuit breaker. The breaker sees only 10 amps of load and doesn't trip, though you have wiring downstream from the solar panel that's carrying 20 Amps. This will start a fire.
I'm not sure why all the downvotes, but overloading is true, see here how to avoid it:
https://balkon.solar/news/2025/03/17/how-does-plug-in-pv-in-germany-work/
Preventing Circuit Overload (Source + Load on One Circuit)
The key safety concern is that a plug-in solar inverter feeds into a final sub-circuit “downstream” of the main breaker. Normally, a circuit breaker senses all current on its circuit and trips if the load is too high. But with a PV source injecting current at a wall socket, part of the load is supplied locally. The breaker only “sees” the net current from the grid – not the portion supplied by the solar module . This means the wiring could carry more amps than the breaker’s rating without tripping. For example, on a 16 A circuit a 600 W micro-inverter (≈2.6 A) plus a 16 A appliance could theoretically pull ~18.6 A through the wires while the breaker sees only ~16 A . Over time, such an unseen overload can overheat cables, especially in old or unfavorable installations.
The 800 W limit (specified as 800 VA) was chosen as a conservative safe value so that typical 1.5 mm² house wiring can handle the extra current margin. Even under full sun, a 800 W unit rarely sustains peak output (often max ~500–550 W ≈ 2.4 A), and most circuits can tolerate that small extra current. The limit is rising to 800 W (≈3.5 A) as EU regulations consider <800 W “not significant” generation. At 800 W, German guidance still deems the slight increase manageable, but extra safety margins are advised. For example, in older homes with uncertain wiring, it’s recommended to replace the 16 A breaker with a 13 A one. A 13 A MCB will trip sooner, ensuring that the sum of grid + solar current can’t overheat the cables (13 A from grid + ~3 A PV ≈ 16 A total). Another strategy is having an electrician connect the balcony PV on a dedicated circuit with its own breaker, so it doesn’t combine with heavy appliance loads on the same line. Then even larger system would be possible.
In practice, users are advised to avoid overloading scenarios proactively: connect the mini-PV to a circuit that isn’t already near capacity, and never daisy-chain multiple PV units or plug them into extension strips . Only one unit per outlet/circuit is allowed, which prevents additive overcurrent from two inverters. By following these limits and using the existing circuit protection, Germany keeps wiring stress “within tolerance” . Notably, tests have shown that issues (excessive heating) would only start to appear above roughly 700 W sustained feed-in combined with a fully loaded 16 A circuit in worst conditions.
I suspect it's easier for them to say "you're wrong" without backing up that assertion than to accept that this isn't a completely safe way to implement solar without involving an electrician.
Dude... the way you got piled on with stupid replies. Sometimes comment sections just go the wrong way even if you are completely right. My sympathies.
In Germany, it's limited to more like 800 watts (and I think some other safety regulations). As I understand it, it's generally worked without this being much of an issue despite millions of plug in solar installs (primarily for balcony solar)
The solar panel would be providing some of that electricity though. You're not accounting for that.
I am accounting for that, that's the whole point I'm making. Breaker is supplying 10 of its available 15 Amps, solar provides another 10 Amps, load downstream is drawing 20. Wiring between solar and load is carrying 20 Amps, but potentially rated for only 15.
You are correct. Excess current could exist in portions of the circuit but never be seen by the breaker, therefore the breaker could not protect against it.
I think you need to learn how electric circuits work.
That's an awfully snarky reply to someone who is correct.
I've had more than a few classes on circuits throughout my schooling, from high school physics to my mechanical engineering college coursework. Please enlighten me as to where my logic is flawed.
Two sources wired in parallel can supply more current than either individual source can supply on its own. The wiring on each parallel branch will have identical voltage, and the converged branch will carry the sum of the currents. Total load of 20 amps exceeds the capacity of the wiring, breaker doesn't see the full load and doesn't trip.
My backyard faces west. If I could, I’d fill up half of it with solar panels.
