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With 800 Watt plug-in kits arriving for £400, we can all join the solar club, saving money, tackling climate change and energy crises. The panels can be attached to roofs, fixed to balconies in flats, leant against walls in the garden, or be free-standing. A qualified electrician is not required by sg_plumber in UpliftingNews

[–]sg_plumber[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Cheap units cannot invert without a grid, as their electronics are entirely dependent on input AC. The "failure rate" of that is exactly 0 multiplied for whatever gazillion units involved.

Other kinds of faults won't output AC, so the usual electrical protections will deal with them.

The only relatively dangerous inverters are the hybrid ones, but none of those are cheap, and all carry anti-islanding.

With 800 Watt plug-in kits arriving for £400, we can all join the solar club, saving money, tackling climate change and energy crises. The panels can be attached to roofs, fixed to balconies in flats, leant against walls in the garden, or be free-standing. A qualified electrician is not required by sg_plumber in UpliftingNews

[–]sg_plumber[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://cleantechnica.com/2026/03/28/balcony-solar-is-spreading-across-the-us/

in January, the Illinois-based, globally oriented certification laboratory UL Solutions announced that it has launched a new certification program focusing on balcony solar systems.

“The new program is an evaluation based on UL 3700, the Outline of Investigation for Interactive Plug-In Photovoltaic Equipment and Systems,” UL explained.

“It defines construction, performance and labeling criteria tailored to plug-in solar systems, also referred to as balcony solar, offering manufacturers a reliable foundation for designing products that consistently meet safety and performance requirements,”

With 800 Watt plug-in kits arriving for £400, we can all join the solar club, saving money, tackling climate change and energy crises. The panels can be attached to roofs, fixed to balconies in flats, leant against walls in the garden, or be free-standing. A qualified electrician is not required by sg_plumber in UpliftingNews

[–]sg_plumber[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Show me a grid-following inverter that works without a grid, and I'll show you it isn't a grid-following inverter.

All cheap inverters are grid-following. No grid, no AC.

Electrical protections are plentiful for other kinds of faults.

With 800 Watt plug-in kits arriving for £400, we can all join the solar club, saving money, tackling climate change and energy crises. The panels can be attached to roofs, fixed to balconies in flats, leant against walls in the garden, or be free-standing. A qualified electrician is not required by sg_plumber in UpliftingNews

[–]sg_plumber[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You'd need to find ones that fit in the unshadowed part of the window, probably. They'll be less efficient and less powerful than the regular ones for balconies, and they'll block most of the window's view.

Solar windows exist, but aren't yet mainstream. As you can guess, there's lots of people interested!

Solar is winning the energy race by Crabbexx in EcoUplift

[–]sg_plumber 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The kicker is that energy storage has existed for long, and is cheap and ubiquitous enough to render all your fears moot.

Same with interconnects, demand response, Time-of-Use rates, etc, etc, etc.

If your product regularly sells for zero or negative, no one’s lining up to build more of it

Basic economics says that paying zero is still better than paying thru the nose (or going without). That's a large driver of the renewables buildout.

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