The bill cleared the Assembly and Senate with bipartisan support on Wednesday night and now goes to Governor Gavin Newsom. If he signs it, compatible systems could...
Such a “balcony” system isn’t going to be 600 watts. I’ve got a pair of 100 watt panels that together would each make a fairly good awning for any of my windows. I also have a 200 watt Anker brand panel (one of those weird ones that feels like it’s made of a quarter inch thick sheet of denim) that’s the size of a beach towel. 6 of those 100 watt panels would come close to the size of queen-size bed. You’re not going to have many apartment dwellers dangling something that big out the window.
Most people most of the time don’t have circuits loaded to the very edge of the envelope. If you plugged it into a circuit that’s drawing 10 amps…it’ll still draw 10 amps. It’s just that ~8.2 of them are coming through the breaker, the other ~1.8 are being provided by the solar panel.
It does still sketch me out a little because it breaks certain fundamental design rules of the power grid. Power should come from female sockets not male plugs, and it should come from before a breaker, not after.
Most people most of the time don’t have circuits loaded to the very edge of the envelope.
Unfortunately this is awful terrible engineering ethics and does not fly in the real world. “Most” implies that there WILL be a nonzero number of edge cases where someone does have circuits loaded to within an inch of their lives, and a plug-in solar system will lead to a house fire.
I would agree. Hence why I said “This isn’t how I’m doing my personal solar power.”
Apparently American units are coming with an outlet you install in place of a standard outlet which does monitor the combined power, so the building will have to be modified slightly. Still…any more than a couple hundred watts, if you can, have a proper system installed.
I imagine there are two assumptions:
Such a “balcony” system isn’t going to be 600 watts. I’ve got a pair of 100 watt panels that together would each make a fairly good awning for any of my windows. I also have a 200 watt Anker brand panel (one of those weird ones that feels like it’s made of a quarter inch thick sheet of denim) that’s the size of a beach towel. 6 of those 100 watt panels would come close to the size of queen-size bed. You’re not going to have many apartment dwellers dangling something that big out the window.
Most people most of the time don’t have circuits loaded to the very edge of the envelope. If you plugged it into a circuit that’s drawing 10 amps…it’ll still draw 10 amps. It’s just that ~8.2 of them are coming through the breaker, the other ~1.8 are being provided by the solar panel.
It does still sketch me out a little because it breaks certain fundamental design rules of the power grid. Power should come from female sockets not male plugs, and it should come from before a breaker, not after.
This isn’t how I’m doing my personal solar power.
Unfortunately this is awful terrible engineering ethics and does not fly in the real world. “Most” implies that there WILL be a nonzero number of edge cases where someone does have circuits loaded to within an inch of their lives, and a plug-in solar system will lead to a house fire.
I would agree. Hence why I said “This isn’t how I’m doing my personal solar power.”
Apparently American units are coming with an outlet you install in place of a standard outlet which does monitor the combined power, so the building will have to be modified slightly. Still…any more than a couple hundred watts, if you can, have a proper system installed.