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Plug-in solar is very new in the US. They just banned all chinese inverters so solar is going to get a lot more expensive anyways.
by tencentshill 3mo ago
Plug-in solar is very new in the US. They just banned all chinese inverters so solar is going to get a lot more expensive anyways.
- Spunkie 3mo ago> "They just banned all chinese inverters" That's news to me, when did that happen?
- dlcarrier 3mo agoThey banned importing internet-connected foreign-produced inverters. (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-423682A1.txt https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-423682A1.txt) They are perfectly legal to sell without built-in connectivity, and external monitoring methods aren't prohibited. The concern is that a coordinated network attack on solar inverters could bring down the power grid. They don't go into details, but check out the Aurora Generator Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Generator_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Generator_Test Running solar inverters in opposite phase to the grid would likely not immediately damage them, instead they would draw the amount of power they'd normally provide. In some parts of the US, especially during peak summer demand, even a small percentage of solar power doing this could cause a cascading outage, knocking entire multi-state power grids offline. (See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003) Granted, this could still happen with compromised US-produced inverters, but it's something we should be paying close attention to and planning around.