this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

microgeneration purely in DC only really makes sense in stuff like campers and RV's where you're going to be using primarily nearby, low power consumption devices.

AC is still better, plus modern switching technology while still fairly expensive, is considerably more efficient now. If you're doing AC you also get a number of other benefits, notably, literally every existing appliance and device uses and works with AC voltages, the entire standard around electricity and home wiring is based on AC mains, all of the accessible hardware is also produced for AC mains, not that you can't use it for something else, it's just not intended for that.

Certain appliances will use induction motors, and similar other tech (clocks for example, often use the frequency of the power grid to keep time) based directly on the AC sinewave. You could still run them on DC, it's just significantly sillier. Plus transmission efficiency is a BIG loss in DC (even now with modern solid state switching components, it's still just, not ideal), granted thats less of a problem on a micro grid scale, it's still a concern and potential restriction, nothing beats the simplicity and reliability of a simple wire wound iron core transformer. There are a handful of other technical benefits, and drawbacks as well, but fairly minor.

Having a dedicated DC supply side might be nice for a home environment, but the question is what do you standardize on? DC/DC voltage conversion is fairly efficient as it is already. Converting from AC/DC is incredibly easy and not particularly inefficient at lower power consumption, it's more of a problem with higher draw devices. But you can easily get around that by using a higher voltage to convert down from.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Agreed. I maybe a radical DC home evangelist but yeah AC has its place still and it being THE standard for home appliances is a good example of the powers of scale.

So far for my home usage I'm standardizing on 48vdc because that is the last multiple of 12 before you go above OSHAs low voltage regs.

From there I really want to standardize further on the power delivery spec, because I just love the idea of smart grid for my home. I can then have dispered batteries in my home for either the primary benefits of that device is portable but doesn't always need to be (laptop, power tool batteries, little robot thing, car, etc) or as a way to reduce some crazy limited time power draw (like servers starting up, oven running for an hour a day, etc).

From there maybe just Microadapter for a few standard circuits so the outlets work the same.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Is the multiple of 12 thing just for ease of lead-acid storage?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Personally, a remnant of that. Being able to use standard lead acid batteries is a perk, but primarily I find that that voltage range of < 20-50>vdc in terms of equipment is in those 12v increments too. With the powedelivery (PD) extended power range (epr) going up to 48v right now, and the fixed voltages in that spec being multiples of 12 again matching the industry it is now.

With adjustable voltage supplies (AVS) it might matter less (because it can increment in 100mv instead of a couple fixed voltages) but I haven't messed with that yet myself