Plug in balcony solar UK , just a Lidl question

[Neil Carroll]

I'm very interested in these new " balcony solar " panels that I hear Lidl are going to be selling from June , I've done my research on them and the ones currently for sale "to" the UK market require a new ring circuit to be installed , am I right in thinking that this is unavoidable or are the ones that are going to be specifically produced for UK sales going to be different ?, I don't think that supermarkets selling them over the counter is very responsible if they need a new circuit installing because lets face it people are just going to plug them in and burn their houses down , I'm tempted to buy one , however if the ones specifically created for the UK market are going to bypass this somehow I'll wait until later on in the year

 

[flameport]

People will buy them, plug them into circuits never designed for such things, and hope for the best.

Later when problems have occurred, the usual 'think of the children' brigade will get all busted up over them and demand that 'they' do something about it.

 

[mikehammer69]

People will take allsorts of chances to make money on solar and battery charging. The money doesn't seem that big either.
A weird obsession with turning a profit on electric usage.

 

[ericmark]

0Oh, what a tangled web you weave. We have been talking about plug-in solar since March, after Ed Miliband announced they were to be permitted.

There are two main points, one is the regulations, as it stands BS 1363 does not permit any generator to be plugged in. There are other regulations like G98 and BS 7671 which also seem to cause problems, but what we are really interested in is not the regulations but second point, which is why they can produce a danger.

There are other points, like how they are integrated with the grid. The idea is that tenants can use solar. Homeowners can install solar under existing rules without too much of a problem. But to use solar without installing it, so it can be simply unplugged and taken with one to your new home, needs a lot of changes.

At the moment to get payment for export, a G98 or G99 form need completing which is linked to the property, this clearly will not work if the solar panels are portable.

So the hurdle is how to ensure all rental homes can record export and well as import, so they will all need smart meters, and at the moment the smart meter can be refused by the tenant, that will need to change.

Also, the socket will need to be fed by a bidirectional RCD/RCBO etc. As it stands even in the trade, we have a problem identifying which RCD/RCBO are bidirectional.

So the rules would have to change so that all sockets likely to be used by a solar array are supplied by a bidirectional RCD/RCBO.

If you look at this forum, there are many threads talking about what is going to happen.

We are seeing silly websites like this one where they claim to tell you all about it, then say how they are not electricians or legal experts and have not got a clue if what they are saying is right or wrong. Why they wrote the website not a clue? The same goes for Youtube videos, they either admit what they have done does not comply with regulations or say they haven't a clue if it breaks regulations.

What we need to remember is regulations are not law, but they are referred to in laws, so it hard to say if we can break regulations.

Using a battery pack as an EPS with solar panels connected is not against the regulations, only back feeding into the grid is not allowed.

 

[flameport]

I've done my research on them and the ones currently for sale "to" the UK market require a new ring circuit to be installed

Who said this and where?

 

[flameport]

So the hurdle is how to ensure all rental homes can record export and well as import

It really isn't.
No one will be paid for exporting from some plug in affair, not least because the output of such things will be so low as to be meaningless.

Two thirds of domestic properties already have a smart meter.

 

[Neil Carroll]

People will buy them, plug them into circuits never designed for such things, and hope for the best.

Later when problems have occurred, the usual 'think of the children' brigade will get all busted up over them and demand that 'they' do something about it.

To be fair I'm more concerned about the demand on the fire brigade

 

[ericmark]

It really isn't.
No one will be paid for exporting from some plug in affair, not least because the output of such things will be so low as to be meaningless.

My house back-ground use around 200 watts, above that it will cause export at most times of the day. As we go from 200 to 800 watts, the amount exported will increase to the point where half of what is produced will be exported.

This time of year, we will produce between 6 am and 9 pm, but it will be 10 am to 5 pm to get reasonable output, so 7 hours at 25p per kWh with an 800 watt panel is around £1.5 per day. This will reduce in winter, so looking at a Year then around £250, if half of this is exported for nothing then £125 a year, is it worth it?

To my mind no, not worth it if half you produce is given away.

 

[flameport]

To be fair I'm more concerned about the demand on the fire brigade

Fire is probably the least likely problem.