Are there portable wind turbines and/or solar panels I can put up in my very bright dusty back yard?

  • SeedOnTheWind@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    1 year ago

    The line workers would not be aware of power coming from the load side and therefore may accidentally work on a live line and die.

    Most rooftop solar that plugs into the grid is set up to switch off if power goes out for this reason.

    This is mostly and educated (from a solar class years ago) guess.

    • Kelsenellenelvial@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is right. A proper system has a transfer switch that prevents back feeding the grid if it’s down. There’s also a safety aspect in that supplying power to the branch circuit in this way bypasses the overcurrent protection, so one could potentially be loading that circuit with 5 A on top of its rated load and cause significant damage.

      If a person wants to offset their electricity at this small scale, better to have it powering a shed or charging power tool batteries. Won’t get as good a return, but you’d never get a return on a permitted grid tied system at that scale either.

    • Eavolution@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Would you not have to get a proper switch installed? We have a diesel generator in our house (countryside, unreliable power) and we had to get a big isolater switch, so when the switch is set to generator, nothing can go back into the grid.