Plus, you’re going to fall out of phase with the rest of the grid and then have a bad time when the grid come back online.
Still, it seems like it should be reasonably easy to have an automatic cutoff that breaks the mains line when mains power goes down and phase syncs your power before switching it back on. This is pretty basic stuff. You’ll also need a bit of storage for smoothing out the power in your house so you don’t get mini brownouts when the AC or Fridge kick on.
That is (insert favorite go-to string of swear words here). Power outages are one of the main reasons I’m doing the research to see if we can go solar. Unfortunately it seems we’re in a part of the country that doesn’t get much solar energy most of the time.
How can they get away with that?
Ah, thank you for this explanation.
If the solar energy was being routed solely to on-site batteries, would that be OK in an outage?
And what happens if you’re out of town on the day the outage occurs, and therefore don’t know to turn off your system?
I realize that, in Capitalist America, contract law doesn’t really apply anymore, except on the enforcement side; but I can scarcely think of anything more profoundly contrary to the history and theory of contract than a contract you have to agree to in order to see ('Meeting of Minds? LOLWUT?) and which can change at any time, but only from one side (ditto). It’s common enough that one cannot but admit that it is de-facto legal; but it’s sheer insanity.
If the agreement is actually that broad, they are messing with you; but there is a very good reason why grid-connected solar/wind/diesel generator/whatever systems are supposed to either shut down or have a failsafe disconnect from the grid under an outage condition:
If an outage has occurred, the odds are substantially better that some part of the system is damaged, and some poor guys in bucket trucks are putzing around with the wires trying to get things hooked back up. If somebody’s home generator is still pumping into the grid, unpredictable portions of what should be ‘dead’ line will be hot enough to potentially kill the lineman, start a fire, whatever.
Now, if the contract actually says ‘HAHAHA, suffer in the dark!’, you are being screwed; but if it says ‘Absolutely No Way does your system remain grid-connected and energized during an outage, your choice of staying connected and going dark or cutting over and staying lit; but At Least One Had Better Be True’, that’s just a standard safety measure.
if it is cloudy, a small windturbine could come to the rescue
I have at least one sad example of how the internet is getting used by so called renewable energy sceptics whose sole purpose is to badmouth renewables. I feel he/she/they are getting paid to express their views in the manner they do and so often…
@stebuu
What you describe is called islanding.
2) where I come from it is of paramount importance to add an inverter that stops exactly this situation. If you don’t have this, you do not take permission to connect to the grid
Thanks!
Electricity, for better or worse is no different than steel or wheat: The way to produce it economically is to produce it in very large quantities. The less each plant produces the higher the cost of production at that plant, This is the reason nuclear power and hydroelectric power survive in the current political environment at all. Those ARE the two most economical ways to produce it.
Unfortunately, decentralization only increases the cost burden on the consumer who can ill afford it!
Nice theory, but causes more problems than it solves.
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