Ed Throws Trade Bodies Into Chaos Over DIY Solar!

As I said on the other thread on this topic this is not a matter for BS 7671 so no new amendment is needed.

I also pointed out placing these devices on the UK market is unlawful.

I forgot to mention that BS 1363 for 13A sockets does not permit them to be used for connecting a generator.

Assuming that Mrs Trellis has purchased one of these answer to all our energy problems and she plugs it in to a socket and it has a Type A bi-directional RCD, and it has anti-islanding, and there is a fault to earth and the RCD trips off happy days. But what if Mrs Trellis is so impressed with her free source of electricity and she buys another one and plugs it in to a socket on the same circuit or a multi-way extension lead what could possibly go wrong with that?

The same store that was mentioned in the press does bags of assorted cable ties that will be needed to hand the device out of the window when Mrs Trellis has done her wind uplift calculation.

Of course if Mrs Trellis  lives in a tower block HRB she, and all her neighbours, will seek consent from the fire engineer who produced the fire strategy for the building? Careful how you drill the facia cladding Mrs Trellis when you try to get the panel to face the sun at the correct angle to get your full 400W.

Of course if you asked the relevant Minister for an explanation on what questions he asked before he made his bold strategy you will get a comprehensive answer including the details of the safety study by competent engineers not big business sales executives. Probably a bit like asking the Minister of Defence how many warships we have and getting Um Err, and he did not get asked the bonus question which was and how many warships do we have that could go to sea at immediate notice? The answer to the bonus question is none but don't worry as Germany has lent us one so we take part in a NATO exercise.

You can tell that I do not have any confidence  in any of our politicians of any party to be truthful and do anything useful.

I once worked for a former conservative MP and his stock answers to questions was, "I don't carry that level of detail around in my head" and "I won't trouble you with the detail".

You can expect full shelves of plug in solar at all the usual warehouse outlets and on line with brisk sales to the gullible public. Quickly followed by plug in battery storage from the far East.

JP

John Peckham said:

answer to all our energy problems

If 1.2 million of these are installed, that would be 1 GW on full output, which is what comes ashore just down the road in IFA2.

Biggest problem with solar is that the sun does not shine enough when you need it most, i.e. in December and January.

Chris Pearson said:

If 1.2 million of these are installed, that would be 1 GW on full output, which is what comes ashore just down the road in IFA2.

Biggest problem with solar is that the sun does not shine enough when you need it most, i.e. in December and January.

It's the distinction between energy and power - those solar systems provide a quantity of energy each year, reducing the amount required from fossil fueled sources and so they act as a fuel saving measure, reducing UK consumption of gas/LNG, reducing carbon emissions. But yes, they are not firm, dispatchable power generation so do not reduce the amount of firm, dispatchable generating capacity to any significant degree.

Of course, that starts to change if these are installed with battery storage, which is firm/dispatchable.

John Peckham said:

Of course if you asked the relevant Minister for an explanation on what questions he asked before he made his bold strategy you will get a comprehensive answer including the details of the safety study by competent engineers not big business sales executives.

There are engineers with a "can do" attitude, and ones with a "can't do" attitude. The latter are the ones who will tell you that you can't do something, even when someone else is already doing it.

If we were emperor and dictator :-),  we'd have all the 'big' solar and wind turbines removed (the rest 'smaller' better reviewed and organised) and the netzero rubbish etc consigned to oblivion ... inc. the gullible folks that cheer it on and support it without getting what's really going on (no we wont explain - it is past that).

Solar and wind options are not really a product of a free market .. it was foisted - it was not organic - no one asked anyone if they wanted it all , at least as a 'national' power source and above other viable/credible options.

The wretched establishment stole tax-payer money for a whole heap of incentives and subsidising it etc  and frighteningly, it mattered not what objections have been presented.  It doesn't matter whether one agrees or doesn't agree, or likes or not, what matters is how we got there (democratically, politically, sensibly, feasibly, cost effectively etc)

Please don't argue with us here - we are not for turning ... draw a line in the sand and see you on the  [figuratively I hope] battlefield when the time comes and it is on this 'green' subject  (all of it not just the solar and wind).  ;-)

We can do (and could have done) better as a society for the country and planet  than this ill-conceived, socially and environmentally unfriendly cash-cow (for the vested few) that 'green' has been.

(Said all in the best possible taste and due respect)

And what about the gullible folks who keep believing the oil industry propaganda, telling us that renewables don't work and are too expensive.

They desperately don't want us to realise that there are alternatives that won't make them any money.

Well, we might agree with that too. 

In any case, we don’t like being forced 'poor' , whilst others get [to varying degrees] 'rich', due to some questionably argued existential threat foisted 'solutions' amongst other issues.

This issue (and others) is all part of a much bigger machination. Still continue to scoff at that many do. We've watched many educated (whatever that means to each) people seemingly get duped over the last decades on various issues and they possibly still don't realise it. Less educated, one can accept.

Peace.

I appreciate that every little helps, but the notion that wind and solar can provide enough leccy here in temperate Europe seems fanciful.

I'd like to see a lot more nuclear.

Chris Pearson said:

I appreciate that every little helps, but the notion that wind and solar can provide enough leccy here in temperate Europe seems fanciful.

I'd like to see a lot more nuclear

I don't think anyone is arguing wind and solar can meet all of Europe's electricity needs, but what is argued is that wind and solar can meet some portion of that demand, a growing portion, thereby reducing the amount we need to obtain from burning fossil fuels, with fossil fuels (in the UK with it's limited hydro/elec storage) providing the firm, dispatchable, flexible generation to fill in the gaps of renewables output. 

From the engineering perspective, that's a very defensible position, it's perfectly possible. The critique is more economic, the costs of that renewable generation and the overall system costs from the greater total generating capacity required to handle the intermittency.

Nuclear has the benefit of being a steady source of generation, presumably with lower system costs from less need for back-up and better use of the transmission network, but the problem is the very high cost and significant financial and engineering risks associated with nuclear power plant construction, plus the very long construction times.

Sergio Fernandez said:

As a sidenote with DIY solar/DIY inverter/DIY battery storage there needs to be a working group for the UK discussing and designing UK power stability be it through inertia or other mechanisms to proactively stabilising the UK power grid.

Here's a presentation from a couple of years ago on a related issue which I don't think gets anywhere near enough attention - the potential for coordinated malicious abuse of most of these internet-connected devices due to their appalling software security design and execution.

When this research was released, I saw very little coverage of this outside of the computer security community, but it really should bring certain people at NESO out in a cold sweat.

Watch what they could get (every single model of) one brand of device to do (without authorisation, and from anywhere on the globe):

https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11810-decentralized_energy_production_green_future_or_cybersecurity_nightmare

...of course this goes for normal hard wired inverters too. My inverter doesn't get to talk to the Internet and there is no way it ever will, but that doesn't matter much if everyone else's can.

On non-malicious grid stability issues, this UNSW video is quite old now but also very interesting - it'd be worth checking that the tightened approval testing and firmware upgrades that resulted from this work made their way this side of the equator too: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0N2LT5Vmng&t=67