Installing solar panels on your home or business is common in many European countries. But they really come into their own during energy crises.
“If you’ve got a solar roof on your home and you’ve got a battery then, depending on how much energy you can generate, you are substantially insulated from importing electricity,” explains Matthew Clayton, CEO of UK-based Thrive Renewables.
Dynamic tariffs are becoming more common in Europe. This is where the price of electricity varies throughout the day and night, with costs going up during peak periods, like dinner time, when households are using more.
This means that if you store up solar power during daylight hours, when the sun is at its strongest, then you can use that energy, rather than drawing it from the electricity grid, during the most expensive periods. “Your relationship with the grid is totally changed,” says Clayton.
Grid going down?
I think the last time I experienced that was 15 years ago. Even then it was only for a couple of hours.
Like it’s such a non event as to not even bother trying to fix it.
Being prepared for emergencies always seems silly and unnecessary - until that emergency actually hits.
In berlin in december, people sabotaged an electrical substation which led to an entire district losing power. People had no heating, couldn’t go shopping and millions of euros worth of food went bad. In most cities it’s not a problem as every german city (usually) has multiple mobile powerstations, basically a mobile power plant. Well, turns out, berlin only had 3 of them, unlike munich, for example, which has 120.
My girlfriend also recently told me that in some american state (Can’t remember which one exactly), hundreds of thousands of cows froze to death because it got unusually cold. Since the stables are all open (because it’s never that cold), most farmers were unable to intervene in time so most of the cattle died out there.
Or may I remind you of the time texas was hit by a massive snow storm, most of the state lost power and some people actually died because of the temperature? And all because it’s just a “rare occurence” and barely anyone was prepared.
I’m not saying you have to prepare for any eventuality like internet crashes or other stuff that doesn’t cost potentially kill you if it’s gone, but having a backup plan for power outages during winter or maybe a few barrels of clean water in case the water supply gets contaminated is probably not a terrible idea.
What people never seem to realize is that the most popular solar panel + inverter + battery configurations do not work when the grid goes down. Newer systems often have 1-2 outlets that are dedicated as “works with grid failure”.
This is by design so maintenance workers don’t get electrocuted working on lines that are thought to be unpowered.
You need special inverters with built in grid detection and independent frequency generation AND a switch between your meter and your house so that it will dynamically start/stop grid tying (or at least have a manual DPDT/DP4T high amp switch.
Is that true? My system and everyone I know who has one all work fine with the grid goes down. I lose 220v outlets but I only have a couple things on that.
The disadvantage is that you still lose power when the grid goes down, even if you have storage. Unless you run parallel circuits, and your system is island/black start capable.
I’m not sure how that is a disadvantage compared to being on the power grid? If you are on the power grid, and the grid goes down, you also don’t have power.
What is this a disadvantage compared to?
