What are you powering with it? How are you storing the energy? It just doesn’t make any economic sense to me. I’d love to see some statistics on the total cost of one of these systems and how much power people are actually getting. Maybe it makes more sense in Germany where energy prices are nearly double the US average. But I’d still love to see some real examples to back that up.
You can have an electrician install a system and setup an agreement with an electric company to back feed and be credited. But you cannot just plug something into the wall that backfeeds. Most places in the US that’s illegal. And that’s why it makes less economic sense here. The system will already pay back at a much slower pace because of our lower energy costs. And the increased minimum cost to install makes it much less desirable. It’s not just a regulation problem either. Our outlets aren’t particularly safe for a backfeeding setup.
Here smaller setups require a battery and again, that increases the cost. You mostly only see larger whole home rooftop installs because of this.
Outlets dont really have an orientation. Shouldnt matter which direction the power is flowing as long as you dont exceed 80% the rating of the lowest denominator of the circuit. 800 watts shouldn’t really hurt any circuits, even the 10amp ones which is about the smallest I think I’ve ever seen here.
Backfeeding is only illegal in the sense of safety requirements to my knowledge. These panels dont feed when grid is off (embedded ATS). Which satisfies safety (UL would just need to approve, but likely wouldn’t until the last item below is addressed). At just 800 watts… I doubt you’d ever backfeed anyway. And if you do, good luck collecting any money for it. But to that point, I backfeed 15kW batteries during peak hours. Above and beyond my solar setup… they can’t really say anything about it. But I go full island when grid is down, which sadly happens often even though I’m in a major metro area.
Lower cost of energy does make it a harder sell overall but that wasn’t really the question. These panels are also significantly cheaper since you dont need to pay install fees and such. The equation is a bit different.
The only real hiccup is the nature of our phased systems here… a solar panel in a single outlet will only feed one phase.That’s a problem. One that probably makes it a nonstarter as people simply wont install 240v outlets on their patios/balconies. But I don’t think Ive seen a law that says backfeed illegal, but illegal to cause safety issues on dead grid (eg. you must have an ATS or main service lockout). Do you have a source on illegality outside ot ATS/lockout requirement?
Balcony solar panels are dirt cheap, you can get them for 200-300€, including the micro inverter. You usually do not have batteries in these setups, you just use up the generated power while it is available by moving things like the dishwasher and dryer to that time.
To give some actual numbers, I pay 0.22€ per kWh right now. In the last 30 days (Apr 21 - May 20) the balcony solar panels generated 74.11kWh. The month was fairly average with an even mixture of sunny days and rainy days.
Assuming you can use up the 800W of peak power, you will have saved around 16€ in just those 30 days. I don’t have full data for the year yet since I only got mine a few months back but my current estimation is that it will have paid for itself after 2-4 years.
What are you powering with it? How are you storing the energy? It just doesn’t make any economic sense to me. I’d love to see some statistics on the total cost of one of these systems and how much power people are actually getting. Maybe it makes more sense in Germany where energy prices are nearly double the US average. But I’d still love to see some real examples to back that up.
You plug it straight into the wall, it syncs to the grid and back-feeds it, up to 800W. Your meter stops spinning (or even goes backwards)
Back feeding is illegal in the US.
So… if backfeeding is illegal. How does home solar work in the US?
You can have an electrician install a system and setup an agreement with an electric company to back feed and be credited. But you cannot just plug something into the wall that backfeeds. Most places in the US that’s illegal. And that’s why it makes less economic sense here. The system will already pay back at a much slower pace because of our lower energy costs. And the increased minimum cost to install makes it much less desirable. It’s not just a regulation problem either. Our outlets aren’t particularly safe for a backfeeding setup.
Here smaller setups require a battery and again, that increases the cost. You mostly only see larger whole home rooftop installs because of this.
Outlets dont really have an orientation. Shouldnt matter which direction the power is flowing as long as you dont exceed 80% the rating of the lowest denominator of the circuit. 800 watts shouldn’t really hurt any circuits, even the 10amp ones which is about the smallest I think I’ve ever seen here.
Backfeeding is only illegal in the sense of safety requirements to my knowledge. These panels dont feed when grid is off (embedded ATS). Which satisfies safety (UL would just need to approve, but likely wouldn’t until the last item below is addressed). At just 800 watts… I doubt you’d ever backfeed anyway. And if you do, good luck collecting any money for it. But to that point, I backfeed 15kW batteries during peak hours. Above and beyond my solar setup… they can’t really say anything about it. But I go full island when grid is down, which sadly happens often even though I’m in a major metro area.
Lower cost of energy does make it a harder sell overall but that wasn’t really the question. These panels are also significantly cheaper since you dont need to pay install fees and such. The equation is a bit different.
The only real hiccup is the nature of our phased systems here… a solar panel in a single outlet will only feed one phase.That’s a problem. One that probably makes it a nonstarter as people simply wont install 240v outlets on their patios/balconies. But I don’t think Ive seen a law that says backfeed illegal, but illegal to cause safety issues on dead grid (eg. you must have an ATS or main service lockout). Do you have a source on illegality outside ot ATS/lockout requirement?
Balcony solar panels are dirt cheap, you can get them for 200-300€, including the micro inverter. You usually do not have batteries in these setups, you just use up the generated power while it is available by moving things like the dishwasher and dryer to that time.
To give some actual numbers, I pay 0.22€ per kWh right now. In the last 30 days (Apr 21 - May 20) the balcony solar panels generated 74.11kWh. The month was fairly average with an even mixture of sunny days and rainy days.
Assuming you can use up the 800W of peak power, you will have saved around 16€ in just those 30 days. I don’t have full data for the year yet since I only got mine a few months back but my current estimation is that it will have paid for itself after 2-4 years.
How are you getting power to your appliances? Someone else suggested back feeding into an outlet which is illegal in the US.
Back feeding is legal here if it is connected to a micro inverter which can turn off immediately when disconnected and never outputs more than 800W.
And this is the answer to why it makes sense in Europe and not the US.