Am a numbers guy, I know you like da number

For real, this recent change sucks ass

Just buy them frozen, idiots

Many inverters aren’t even UL listed.

Yes but many inspectors and insurance companies won’t want you to install electrical equipment on “real property” or buildings if it isn’t UL as that falls into the scope of AHJs and insurance providers. If there’s something that has the potential to start a fire, you need to have safety certifications so operating the system not only reduces the risk of fire, but also selling the house in the future to a new owner doesn’t come with excess burden on behalf of the next insurer.

If your solar system is off-grid AND off-building, I see no reason that you need to have a UL listed system.

This is of course dependent on local AHJs and utilities, but UL 1741 covers both standalone (off-grid) and grid-interactive (on-grid) inverters. If you’re choosing an inverter manufacturer that makes non-UL listed off-grid inverters, I would probably be suspect of their products’ quality as it’s easier to gain UL listing regardless of how the inverter is used: off-grid or grid-interactive.

That’s the problem.

That is a problem. Off-grid inverters that aren’t certified to UL 1741-SB aren’t required to have anti-islanding protection that cuts the inverters off if there’s an absence of grid voltage. If a “balcony solar” inverter were to NOT cease to energize upon loss of grid and stay islanded, then voltage is introduced to the building’s/community’s shared local distribution system. If work were to be done on that portion of the distribution system or grid where lineman and wireman expect conductors to be de-energized, then you might have injuries as a result. Now, you may be able to say that lineman and wireman should always test for presence of voltage prior to doing work, and as a solar engineer I would absolutely expect folks to do this, but that’s not always the case. People cut corners. And in the event that certain crews cut corners, don’t check for voltage and investigate where the voltage source is, and start touching wires and introducing paths to ground, people can get seriously injured or die.

You may think that because solar panels are current-limited that this fact protects workers in the event of becoming exposed to live voltage, but any combination of voltage and current can kill.

I’ve always wanted DRM for my inverter.

In the context of safety, this is a good thing. Skirting DRM on movies or TVs won’t mean you injure yourself or others or worse. Skirting inverter settings can cause inverters to operate in ways that are unintended, and could hurt people. These things are not the same, and it’s concerning that you can’t see the difference.

Also, having locks on settings means that other bad actors are deterred from changing those settings maliciously, whether intentional or not.

There is not substitute for a qualified person operating and maintaining an electrical system, regardless of voltage.

I think it should just require a permit

Agreed

Inverters in the US are all listed to UL1741-SB which dictates that they shall cease to energize their AC outputs if they sense an absence of grid voltage.

Now, one thing people are ignoring is that UL1741-SB allows for islanding protection, and the disablement of it. If an inverter has its settings changed such that islanding protection is OFF, then the inverter will keep sending power to the “grid” because it thinks it’s operating on a microgrid that was previously disconnected from the larger grid via a Microgrid Interconnection Device (MID).

The settings these inverters have are user-settable, which means they need to be checked by a qualified person, either a contractor, engineer, or inspector. These settings must also often be checked by the utility you’re interconnecting to before they allow you to energize, so usually all of these parties have eyes on the inverters’ settings and can stop work before energization until things are corrected.

Ultimately I agree with you. If we don’t want to have to need inspections for every solar installation, especially residential ones and especially where plug-and-play solar modules are used, then inverters need to have their settings pre-configured for the grid code in the factory that then cannot be changed by the user or operator in the field. That would be a way to shoe-in this kind of installation.

Hard setting grid codes into inverters prior to shipping to site might be overly conservative though, especially as utilities change their grid codes over time. You need to have a way to update those settings, which could be using a wireless portal hosted by the inverter OEM with credentials made only available to the OEM. Problem with this is that then you shift the burden of configuration to the manufacturer which already has a ton of other UL standards as well as rules and regulations to follow.

What do y’all think?

Mandating solar PV in all building codes nationwide, and incentivizing onshoring of all of the processes that go into manufacturing solar PV panels (including using trade protectionism practices such as tariffs AFTER WE ALREADY HAVE PROCESSING AND MANUFACTURING CAPABILITIES IN THE USA) will do wonders for helping average people transition away from fossil fuel Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars to EVs.

Many people who cry foul about EVs and renewables adding too much load to a grid that is too old and just can’t handle it forget the main counter to disarm their arguments: colocating generation with utilization.

Having solar PV (and other renewable) generation closest to where that power wants to be used is the best for the grid infrastructure (maybe not the grid investors) because it reduces residential/commercial load while maintaining the needs of the original giga users of the grid: Industry.

There are solutions to SO many of today’s problems. We just have politicians that are bought and sold by billionaires and their corporations who won’t do the public’s bidding. Voting progressive politicians in, and preferably ones who vocally claim they’re Democratic Socialist or similar, is the strongest way we push back against Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Tech, and all the other mega industries.

The DeRidder Diddler

The real title is always in the comments

Allegedly

Spain should quickly establish trade relations with China in the absence of trade with the US.

We’ve already seen Germany violate the statutes of the EU by (allegedly) harboring Benjamin Netanyahu while he has an ICC warrant for his arrest.

No strong reasons to stick with the federation right now

Please dear god USS Gerald Ford soldiers keep shitting so the carrier is incapacitated and the US can’t invade

Can Cloudflare help prevent this?

Netflix made a documentary about the European islands that prioritized switching away from oil: Islands of the Future.

I would say with China’s help, a renewable Cuba is entirely possible.

My only concern is the hazards introduced by hurricanes, which can be compensated for by implementing flush roof-mount solar PV systems (minimizes wind loads), underground electric power lines, subgrade geothermal loops with heat pumps, indoor substations and Battery Electric Storage System (BESS) facilities, and pumped storage hydropower utilizing Cuba’s mountain ranges. Wind is probably not a viable technology given that hurricanes can completely cover the island with crazy strong winds.

Edit: as another commenter pointed out, tidal power would be a good alternative too. The best technology I’ve seen to utilize tidal is made by Orbital Marine Power based out of Scotland, who basically slaps 2 turbines onto a submarine to collect power. Could have offshore substations that collect that power and send it back to shore.

Oh when will China start making HDDs and SSDs and GPUs and CPUs

PLEASE China PLEASE flood the market with cheap, top shelf computer parts that will force Western corporations to lower their prices or go bankrupt when they don’t

Trump fucked Melania just enough to have kids.

He’s asexual biromantic otherwise

Death, death to the IDF

Then we’ll surround ICE. Fuck em

Literally!

Cooperatives and unions are the future!

Since I see both on here,

Trilium > Obsidian