this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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@makingStuffForFun @PetulantBandicoot "the grid will only pull from solar if required" You export what you aren't using or storing at the moment of generation. The only question is how much that earns you - or costs you. The electricity has to go somewhere and it's not like you can just let it run out on the ground :)
You see, that's the opposite of my caravan's solar. It can sit up there in the full sun and potentially generate a lot of power, but it won't send a single thing to the caravan or the batteries unless they request it. So the batteries and the usage of the caravan pull power from the panels, but the panels do not push power, so to speak.
So that makes me wonder if the solar panels on the roof are the same. The reason I say that is that the electricity companies want to charge us for solar generation because they say that we are feeding so much power into their grid that it's stressing the grid out. But if it's the same as my caravan solar then it is not. And I guess that's why I was hoping that somebody who knows about these kind of things could put some input in.
that's a good question. I think it's due to the scale. Household also always runs through an inverter to supply mains to a house, and interacts with the mains board whereas a caravan usually runs the standard regulator (which manages load requests)
It comes down to what system you have, all solar panels are the same, they generate DC power in the sun, and send it down the line to the next set of components, for an off grid set up it usually goes, solar controler, this let's the right amount of watts through to supply current demand and/or charge the batteries, from there depending on the set up either to the battery's detectly or through the inverter to the battery's, the inverter takes DC and turns it to AC to run whatever is at the end. For on grid the panels run to an inverter that powers either the current demand or pumps the power being made by the panels to the grid, this is where you can run into trouble if everyone has just on grid setup, if no one's using power at midday then you have all that power being pumped into the grid and it puts a fair load on things to keep it from poping. There are hybrid systems as well both the panels and grid run to the batteries.
I personally think if each house had a battery system, connected to the grid that also has a battery bank say at every transformer on a pole, I think that would make a pretty good multiple redundancy grid, expensive sure, but how much money does the government already waste. Just my 2 cents
awesome, thanks. I wasn't too sure on the grid tied. Built a few off grid, but I don't touch mains.
We're actually doing something along your last point in Vic - the neighbourhood battery scheme
I wonder if it could be as simple as that, as just having the houses only supply, as the grid needs it, with something as simple as a regulator?