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Some people laugh at the 800W output. However, in Indonesia, roughly half of the 300 million people live in homes with an electricity capacity of 900W or less.

Some people laugh at the 800W output. However, in Indonesia, roughly half of the 300 million people live in homes with an electricity capacity of 900W or less. Wish these kind of panels were available at that price here. We have pretty much 12 hours of sunlight every single day but household solar panel is discouraged by the state owned utilities.

lucb1e 1y ago
What do you mean by 'that price'? Are there heavy import tariffs or another artificial reason why you can't order from the same chinese manufacturers as germany does? I would have thought that the issue is purchasing power inequality between germany and indonesia, not that they're not available globally at a similar price
- PieTime 1y ago
  Some countries with state gas or utility monopoly will ensure legislation blocks solar power. Example Thailand has huge solar potential but cheap gas, so they block solar panel installations Yes, there is inequality as can be seen in Pakistan. But once restrictions are dropped the solar panels take off.
  - lucb1e 1y ago
    Surely you can do what you want within your own home, so long as you don't hook it up to the grid? I'm also not sure if this fits with the price restriction they mentioned. Prohibitions can't be bypassed by paying a higher price, unless it were to refer to bribes
    - gpm 1y ago
      The systems in the article are hooked up to the grid though. They're hooked up in an extremely safe and responsible manner, but it's understandable that there are regulations about what can be hooked up, and simply not surprising that they haven't been updated to say "yeah, this is ok".
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        A lot of solar systems are set up to sell excess power back to the grid. It makes sense that these systems would have some regulatory criteria because you wouldn't want e.g. home solar systems putting power on the lines when the utility company has the power off because of a downed wire or active work. It's also possible to have a solar system that doesn't do this. Either you have a battery system and if you generate excess power you only put it into your own batteries or the system is small relative to the load of the house so you're rarely if ever generating more than you're actively using and configure the system so the grid is only ever attached to the input side. This should not be any more dangerous to the grid than using a UPS or charging an electric car and if the regulations make it more difficult than that they should be suspected of malicious intent.
        gpm 1y ago
        The systems discussed in the article aren't necessarily selling excess power back to the grid, but they are sending it back to the grid (possibly for free). Because they work by pumping power into a wall socket. They do so responsibly (fancy electronics that turn them off when the grid goes down). But it is the case where you are acknowledging that extra regulatory criteria make sense.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        But in that case the regulations would only have to apply to plugging in something that doesn't do that. There shouldn't be any forms or approvals or fees for someone who buys a product that does.
        gpm 1y ago
        I agree there shouldn't be, but I don't think it's surprising that in many places there are. It takes active work for the regulator to look at the product and say "this design is sound, we're sure it won't kill anyone".
        1y ago
- wheels 1y ago
  They're actually actively subsidized in Germany to make them artificially cheap.
  - slow_typist 1y ago
    True, the cut of 19% VAT on panels, inverters (which is applicable to any household PV installation, not only on the balcony) are a subsidy but in the meantime prices came down so much that it’s not really relevant anymore. (440 Wp panels go for 60 EURO a piece and a 800 W Hoymiles inverter for around 120 so total subsidy is around 50 EURO.) Other subsidies paid for by the communal bodies are long gone. Cutting the VAT helped to accelerate diffusion but that is what subsidies are made for. Probably the simplification of the registration process is by far more important. And last but not least the VAT cut for solar is a rounding error compared to the subsidies of ICE car traffic.
    - kragen 1y ago
      Are those retail prices? Are you buying them in a store, or what? 440Wp/60€ is only 0.136€/Wp, which is higher than the wholesale 0.100€/Wp price reported on Solarserver, but only barely. The word "diffusion" does get used in this way in English, but many native English speakers may be unfamiliar with it.
      - slow_typist 1y ago
        Yeah retail prices. And yes you can buy them in a store like home depot or order them on the internet but shipping is prohibitively expensive for small amounts. Cheapest source are local firms that install PV professionally and sell via kleinanzeigen.de as a side business or to get rid of excess stock. Thanks for the clarification, also on the use of the word diffusion. In social sciences it is common though, there is even a book titled “Diffusion of Innovations”.
        kragen 1y ago
        Thank you very much! Yes, it's more than a book, it's a whole intellectual movement, although maybe not a very lively one anymore.
Kim_Bruning 1y ago
To be sure, when talking about solar panels, 800W is the nominal/nameplate capacity. That's how much it generates when conditions are perfect and the sun is shining straight down on them. Most of the time an 800W installation will produce rather less than that. You'd need rather more panels (and/or some combination with batteries) to hit 900W output constantly. (on the other hand, do you need 900W constantly, or is that peak usage? A battery might be able to handle that.) That said, solar panels are probably a lot more efficient in Indonesia than they are in Germany. Since you're in/near the tropics, perhaps 1500-2000W nameplate capacity could cover your 900W? See if you can get a local expert do the maths for you.
- g4cg54g54 1y ago
  panels up to 2000W is legal, the 800w limit is actual net input, you can even battery in-between (or use it directly)
- seydor 1y ago
  Nominal capacity is not the maximum, there are plenty of zones where panels perform way above for most of the day. Germany is definitely not one of those zones
SoftTalker 1y ago
[flagged]
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  Do I have to erect the monument to the tomb of the unknown balcony?
- adrianN 1y ago
  What a ridiculous take. I have one of these systems and a 2kWh battery attached to it. It reduces my electricity bill by about half and will pay for itself in less than five years. I sacrifice nothing of my balcony, the panels hang outside.
  - 55555 1y ago
    Can you break down the costs and subsidies you had? Genuinely curious
    - zevon 1y ago
      Not the person you are replying to but my four panels with about 2000W cost me about 370€ shipped including an inverter and cables. The main subsidy is that you don't pay VAT. There are some smaller subsidies but they are local and come from the town/region you live in (none available in my area, for example).
    - adrianN 1y ago
      A kW of panels produces about 1000kWh a year in a sunny location in Germany. Electricity is around 30c/kWh. A 1kW+2kWh batteries and inverter set costs about 1k€ shipped from Amazon.
    - oezi 1y ago
      900 wp systems cost around 300 EUR including inverter and fixation but excluding labor and produces 150-200 EUR in electricity savings. Installation is 2-4 hours when you do it yourself. My city Berlin is subsidizing 250 EUR of the purchase/installation cost but it wasn't worth the paper work hassle to me.
kragen 1y ago
Is it discouraged so hard that you can't get it at all? I'd think it would be pretty hard to keep people from importing solar panels from Vietnam or Thailand—although of course you'd probably have to put it somewhere that surveillance drones could see it, if you want it to get any sun. (In that case, if you have a rooftop, maybe you could put it under a frosted-glass skylight.) If anything, I'd expect the prices to be lower. Do you have a local Indonesian equivalent of eBay like we do here in Argentina? Or, just eBay? I assume "electricity capacity of 900W" means that the wires from the transformer (and in the walls) are only rated for 4 amps at 230VAC. This means that you can't really run a 2000-watt air conditioner at all. Whereas, with an 800-watt solar panel charging a battery, you can run a 2000-watt air conditioner 40% of the time when the panel is in full sun. Washing machines and refrigerators are an even bigger difference, since they usually have huge peaks of current draw when they start up their motors, but relatively low average power. So the solar panels may actually be a much bigger boon than simply comparing 800 to 900 makes it sound like. A single car battery can typically source 6000 watts for brief periods of time.
- shellfishgene 1y ago
  https://www.tokopedia.com/ https://www.tokopedia.com/ is the Indonesian Amazon. You can get everything it seems, also grid-tied inverters, but the prices are higher than in Europe from a quick check. Probably import taxes.
  - kragen 1y ago
    Thank you very much!
- neurostimulant 1y ago
  > Is it discouraged so hard that you can't get it at all? The state's power company seems to stop approving grid-connected solar panel system due to oversupply. It's fine if it's not connected to the grid.
hshdhdhehd 1y ago
Most powerful draw is going to be on heating and cooling things which can also be done using gas. Is Indonesia using a lot of gas (or even wood) or they just not cooking?
- adrianN 1y ago
  Germany is using gas or oil for heating too. Heat pumps are gaining popularity, but most heating is still fossil fuels.
- shellfishgene 1y ago
  Kerosene cookers are still very popular in Indonesia, or gas from portable bottles. I've not seen gas refrigerators, but maybe some people also have them.
hedora 1y ago
The sunlight is going to follow a bell curve. Assume 800W at noon, and pessimistically approximate the curve with a triangle. That’s 400W * 12 hours. That’s 4.8 kwh per day. If your house is provisioned for 900W peak, you aren’t running a furnace, a/c, electric heat, or an EV. 4.8 kWh will go a long way in those circumstances. (It’d handle a fridge or two if you could time shift the power, or got one that’s designed to hold cold over night with no power) I don’t think you strictly need utility approvals to install balcony solar. Usually, you can either not wire them into the house at all, or have a switch to switch the house between grid and solar. (It’s better to back feed into the grid, but that requires utility cooperation. If properly installed the switch I describe is safe but maybe illegal.)
- kragen 1y ago
  Indonesia gets a great deal more sunlight than Germany, almost twice as much: https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locality=indonesia https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locali... Legality can be a funny thing. Governments can make anything they want illegal. Here in Argentina it's illegal to import used capital equipment that hasn't been refurbished by the original manufacturer or to import maps that say that the Malvinas Islands aren't part of Argentina. In Thailand it's illegal to step on paper currency because the king's face is on it.
ReptileMan 1y ago
The real output is probably 200-250 W in perfect conditions. It just points to how insanely expensive German electricity is after they decided to commit the double suicide of ditching nuclear and Russian gas.
- watwut 1y ago
  Russia gas is suicide. Especially considering that Russia plans war against the Europe and even already started act on those plans.
  - GordonS 1y ago
    This is satire... right?
    - watwut 1y ago
      1.) Russia is already sending drones to border countries. 2.) Russian politicians openly talk about such possibility. 3.) Russian interest in expansion is no secret. War with Russia is a real possibility. Considering NATO is not reliable anymore (due USA being less then reliable partner) , considering China seem to low key support Russia, it is not even crazy from the Russian side.
      - GordonS 1y ago
        On drones: there is no evidence of that. The supposed "drone ship" that was siezed by France turned out to be crewed by Chinese and had no drones or weapons on board. A Croatian citizen were arrested regarding the drone near Frankfurt airport. Three Germans were arrested regarding the drones near Oslo. Consider what Russia could possibly have to gain by randomly flying drones near civilian airports... nothing? Consider what NATO have to gain - stirring up anti-Russian sentiment, garnering consent for massive expenditure on an "EU drone wall" and continued money laundering in the Ukraine. Please show me where Russian politicians openly talk about flying drones around European airports? I've seen Putin and others ridicule the very notion - and it really is ridiculous. Oh, I forgot about the supposed Russian drones in Poland too, drones which don't even have the range to get to Poland, and which had literally been duct-taped together from the remains of Russian drones and placed for a photoshoot! Look at this map of NATO's expansion eastward toward Russia, and then please do tell about Russia's supposed expansion plans: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_NATO_enlargement_animation.gif https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_NATO_enla... War with Russia is only a real possibility because the US and EU want it.
jwr 1y ago
> Some people laugh at the 800W output As a data point, 200-300W is enough to heat a 35m2 wooden house to 20°C with a heat pump, in Poland, so with external temperatures normally between -5°C and 15°C. Your watts can go much farther than you think.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
alias_neo 1y ago
What are your most high powered appliances there? Thinking about my home (in the UK) the "worst offenders" seem to be things that heat things, washing machine when it's heating water (~2.5kW), electric oven (~2-4kW), kettle (~1-2kW), electric heater (1-2kW). Outside of those, we could have most other things on in the house and not be using much more than 1kW, though granted I've been very intentional with electrical efficiency with the electrical and electronic devices in our home (by UK standards).
- herbst 1y ago
  Heating is always the culprit (or cooling but that's less of an issue in our area). But one thing to realize is that the industry was just lazy and none of this is actually "needs" a full electric line. - You don't need actual heat for washing clothes if you using washing detergent. There are no real simple "machines" available as far as I know, except simple camping washing machines - A rice cooker can work from as low as 250w. I have a "cooking" option in mine drawing 500w taking no longer than the usual 2000w plate (better isolation, optimized heat transfer, ...) to get water cooking. - Heaters are difficult, I've tried a lot of electric options and they all draw a lot of power when you heat something like 20°C over the outside temperature. However ex. "Ecomat 2000" (small ceramic heater) can easily heat a average room at 450 watts. One way to get warm and way lower wattage is heating blankets. From 50 - 100w usually on for 50% you get very far with little power. Not sure if that helps anyone. But I spent a lot of time researching efficient caravan alternatives. Ergo. 800 watts can be a lot.
ManBeardPc 1y ago
The awesome part is you can circumvent the 800W. First you can legally install 2000W solar panels, making 800W output much more likely. The 800W is only how much you can feed back into the grid. Second you can install one or more batteries and feed devices from them, further increasing the usable energy.
- aitchnyu 1y ago
  Can we generate 2 kw, charge batteries and ensure only 800 is fed back at any time?
  - detaro 1y ago
    yes
  - ManBeardPc 1y ago
    Yes, that is exactly what is happening. 2000W solar panels feed the battery, up to 800W are allowed to be fed back into the grid/house network. Keep in mind you could also plug a 3000W device directly into the battery, meaning you could power a lot more than that if it is not connected to the grid. If you have devices that need little power for a long duration or high power for a short duration they can be fed with 100% solar that way. Depending on your use case that can save further money.

lucb1e 1y ago

What do you mean by 'that price'? Are there heavy import tariffs or another artificial reason why you can't order from the same chinese manufacturers as germany does? I would have thought that the issue is purchasing power inequality between germany and indonesia, not that they're not available globally at a similar price

PieTime 1y ago
Some countries with state gas or utility monopoly will ensure legislation blocks solar power. Example Thailand has huge solar potential but cheap gas, so they block solar panel installations Yes, there is inequality as can be seen in Pakistan. But once restrictions are dropped the solar panels take off.
- lucb1e 1y ago
  Surely you can do what you want within your own home, so long as you don't hook it up to the grid? I'm also not sure if this fits with the price restriction they mentioned. Prohibitions can't be bypassed by paying a higher price, unless it were to refer to bribes
  - gpm 1y ago
    The systems in the article are hooked up to the grid though. They're hooked up in an extremely safe and responsible manner, but it's understandable that there are regulations about what can be hooked up, and simply not surprising that they haven't been updated to say "yeah, this is ok".
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      A lot of solar systems are set up to sell excess power back to the grid. It makes sense that these systems would have some regulatory criteria because you wouldn't want e.g. home solar systems putting power on the lines when the utility company has the power off because of a downed wire or active work. It's also possible to have a solar system that doesn't do this. Either you have a battery system and if you generate excess power you only put it into your own batteries or the system is small relative to the load of the house so you're rarely if ever generating more than you're actively using and configure the system so the grid is only ever attached to the input side. This should not be any more dangerous to the grid than using a UPS or charging an electric car and if the regulations make it more difficult than that they should be suspected of malicious intent.
      - gpm 1y ago
        The systems discussed in the article aren't necessarily selling excess power back to the grid, but they are sending it back to the grid (possibly for free). Because they work by pumping power into a wall socket. They do so responsibly (fancy electronics that turn them off when the grid goes down). But it is the case where you are acknowledging that extra regulatory criteria make sense.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        But in that case the regulations would only have to apply to plugging in something that doesn't do that. There shouldn't be any forms or approvals or fees for someone who buys a product that does.
        gpm 1y ago
        I agree there shouldn't be, but I don't think it's surprising that in many places there are. It takes active work for the regulator to look at the product and say "this design is sound, we're sure it won't kill anyone".
        1y ago
wheels 1y ago
They're actually actively subsidized in Germany to make them artificially cheap.
- slow_typist 1y ago
  True, the cut of 19% VAT on panels, inverters (which is applicable to any household PV installation, not only on the balcony) are a subsidy but in the meantime prices came down so much that it’s not really relevant anymore. (440 Wp panels go for 60 EURO a piece and a 800 W Hoymiles inverter for around 120 so total subsidy is around 50 EURO.) Other subsidies paid for by the communal bodies are long gone. Cutting the VAT helped to accelerate diffusion but that is what subsidies are made for. Probably the simplification of the registration process is by far more important. And last but not least the VAT cut for solar is a rounding error compared to the subsidies of ICE car traffic.
  - kragen 1y ago
    Are those retail prices? Are you buying them in a store, or what? 440Wp/60€ is only 0.136€/Wp, which is higher than the wholesale 0.100€/Wp price reported on Solarserver, but only barely. The word "diffusion" does get used in this way in English, but many native English speakers may be unfamiliar with it.
    - slow_typist 1y ago
      Yeah retail prices. And yes you can buy them in a store like home depot or order them on the internet but shipping is prohibitively expensive for small amounts. Cheapest source are local firms that install PV professionally and sell via kleinanzeigen.de as a side business or to get rid of excess stock. Thanks for the clarification, also on the use of the word diffusion. In social sciences it is common though, there is even a book titled “Diffusion of Innovations”.
      - kragen 1y ago
        Thank you very much! Yes, it's more than a book, it's a whole intellectual movement, although maybe not a very lively one anymore.

Kim_Bruning 1y ago

To be sure, when talking about solar panels, 800W is the nominal/nameplate capacity. That's how much it generates when conditions are perfect and the sun is shining straight down on them. Most of the time an 800W installation will produce rather less than that. You'd need rather more panels (and/or some combination with batteries) to hit 900W output constantly. (on the other hand, do you need 900W constantly, or is that peak usage? A battery might be able to handle that.) That said, solar panels are probably a lot more efficient in Indonesia than they are in Germany. Since you're in/near the tropics, perhaps 1500-2000W nameplate capacity could cover your 900W? See if you can get a local expert do the maths for you.

g4cg54g54 1y ago
panels up to 2000W is legal, the 800w limit is actual net input, you can even battery in-between (or use it directly)
seydor 1y ago
Nominal capacity is not the maximum, there are plenty of zones where panels perform way above for most of the day. Germany is definitely not one of those zones

SoftTalker 1y ago

[flagged]

AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Do I have to erect the monument to the tomb of the unknown balcony?
adrianN 1y ago
What a ridiculous take. I have one of these systems and a 2kWh battery attached to it. It reduces my electricity bill by about half and will pay for itself in less than five years. I sacrifice nothing of my balcony, the panels hang outside.
- 55555 1y ago
  Can you break down the costs and subsidies you had? Genuinely curious
  - zevon 1y ago
    Not the person you are replying to but my four panels with about 2000W cost me about 370€ shipped including an inverter and cables. The main subsidy is that you don't pay VAT. There are some smaller subsidies but they are local and come from the town/region you live in (none available in my area, for example).
  - adrianN 1y ago
    A kW of panels produces about 1000kWh a year in a sunny location in Germany. Electricity is around 30c/kWh. A 1kW+2kWh batteries and inverter set costs about 1k€ shipped from Amazon.
  - oezi 1y ago
    900 wp systems cost around 300 EUR including inverter and fixation but excluding labor and produces 150-200 EUR in electricity savings. Installation is 2-4 hours when you do it yourself. My city Berlin is subsidizing 250 EUR of the purchase/installation cost but it wasn't worth the paper work hassle to me.

kragen 1y ago

Is it discouraged so hard that you can't get it at all? I'd think it would be pretty hard to keep people from importing solar panels from Vietnam or Thailand—although of course you'd probably have to put it somewhere that surveillance drones could see it, if you want it to get any sun. (In that case, if you have a rooftop, maybe you could put it under a frosted-glass skylight.) If anything, I'd expect the prices to be lower. Do you have a local Indonesian equivalent of eBay like we do here in Argentina? Or, just eBay? I assume "electricity capacity of 900W" means that the wires from the transformer (and in the walls) are only rated for 4 amps at 230VAC. This means that you can't really run a 2000-watt air conditioner at all. Whereas, with an 800-watt solar panel charging a battery, you can run a 2000-watt air conditioner 40% of the time when the panel is in full sun. Washing machines and refrigerators are an even bigger difference, since they usually have huge peaks of current draw when they start up their motors, but relatively low average power. So the solar panels may actually be a much bigger boon than simply comparing 800 to 900 makes it sound like. A single car battery can typically source 6000 watts for brief periods of time.

shellfishgene 1y ago
https://www.tokopedia.com/ https://www.tokopedia.com/ is the Indonesian Amazon. You can get everything it seems, also grid-tied inverters, but the prices are higher than in Europe from a quick check. Probably import taxes.
- kragen 1y ago
  Thank you very much!
neurostimulant 1y ago
> Is it discouraged so hard that you can't get it at all? The state's power company seems to stop approving grid-connected solar panel system due to oversupply. It's fine if it's not connected to the grid.

hshdhdhehd 1y ago

Most powerful draw is going to be on heating and cooling things which can also be done using gas. Is Indonesia using a lot of gas (or even wood) or they just not cooking?

adrianN 1y ago
Germany is using gas or oil for heating too. Heat pumps are gaining popularity, but most heating is still fossil fuels.
shellfishgene 1y ago
Kerosene cookers are still very popular in Indonesia, or gas from portable bottles. I've not seen gas refrigerators, but maybe some people also have them.

hedora 1y ago

The sunlight is going to follow a bell curve. Assume 800W at noon, and pessimistically approximate the curve with a triangle. That’s 400W * 12 hours. That’s 4.8 kwh per day. If your house is provisioned for 900W peak, you aren’t running a furnace, a/c, electric heat, or an EV. 4.8 kWh will go a long way in those circumstances. (It’d handle a fridge or two if you could time shift the power, or got one that’s designed to hold cold over night with no power) I don’t think you strictly need utility approvals to install balcony solar. Usually, you can either not wire them into the house at all, or have a switch to switch the house between grid and solar. (It’s better to back feed into the grid, but that requires utility cooperation. If properly installed the switch I describe is safe but maybe illegal.)

kragen 1y ago
Indonesia gets a great deal more sunlight than Germany, almost twice as much: https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locality=indonesia https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locali... Legality can be a funny thing. Governments can make anything they want illegal. Here in Argentina it's illegal to import used capital equipment that hasn't been refurbished by the original manufacturer or to import maps that say that the Malvinas Islands aren't part of Argentina. In Thailand it's illegal to step on paper currency because the king's face is on it.

ReptileMan 1y ago

The real output is probably 200-250 W in perfect conditions. It just points to how insanely expensive German electricity is after they decided to commit the double suicide of ditching nuclear and Russian gas.

watwut 1y ago
Russia gas is suicide. Especially considering that Russia plans war against the Europe and even already started act on those plans.
- GordonS 1y ago
  This is satire... right?
  - watwut 1y ago
    1.) Russia is already sending drones to border countries. 2.) Russian politicians openly talk about such possibility. 3.) Russian interest in expansion is no secret. War with Russia is a real possibility. Considering NATO is not reliable anymore (due USA being less then reliable partner) , considering China seem to low key support Russia, it is not even crazy from the Russian side.
    - GordonS 1y ago
      On drones: there is no evidence of that. The supposed "drone ship" that was siezed by France turned out to be crewed by Chinese and had no drones or weapons on board. A Croatian citizen were arrested regarding the drone near Frankfurt airport. Three Germans were arrested regarding the drones near Oslo. Consider what Russia could possibly have to gain by randomly flying drones near civilian airports... nothing? Consider what NATO have to gain - stirring up anti-Russian sentiment, garnering consent for massive expenditure on an "EU drone wall" and continued money laundering in the Ukraine. Please show me where Russian politicians openly talk about flying drones around European airports? I've seen Putin and others ridicule the very notion - and it really is ridiculous. Oh, I forgot about the supposed Russian drones in Poland too, drones which don't even have the range to get to Poland, and which had literally been duct-taped together from the remains of Russian drones and placed for a photoshoot! Look at this map of NATO's expansion eastward toward Russia, and then please do tell about Russia's supposed expansion plans: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_NATO_enlargement_animation.gif https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_NATO_enla... War with Russia is only a real possibility because the US and EU want it.

jwr 1y ago

> Some people laugh at the 800W output As a data point, 200-300W is enough to heat a 35m2 wooden house to 20°C with a heat pump, in Poland, so with external temperatures normally between -5°C and 15°C. Your watts can go much farther than you think.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

alias_neo 1y ago

What are your most high powered appliances there? Thinking about my home (in the UK) the "worst offenders" seem to be things that heat things, washing machine when it's heating water (~2.5kW), electric oven (~2-4kW), kettle (~1-2kW), electric heater (1-2kW). Outside of those, we could have most other things on in the house and not be using much more than 1kW, though granted I've been very intentional with electrical efficiency with the electrical and electronic devices in our home (by UK standards).

herbst 1y ago
Heating is always the culprit (or cooling but that's less of an issue in our area). But one thing to realize is that the industry was just lazy and none of this is actually "needs" a full electric line. - You don't need actual heat for washing clothes if you using washing detergent. There are no real simple "machines" available as far as I know, except simple camping washing machines - A rice cooker can work from as low as 250w. I have a "cooking" option in mine drawing 500w taking no longer than the usual 2000w plate (better isolation, optimized heat transfer, ...) to get water cooking. - Heaters are difficult, I've tried a lot of electric options and they all draw a lot of power when you heat something like 20°C over the outside temperature. However ex. "Ecomat 2000" (small ceramic heater) can easily heat a average room at 450 watts. One way to get warm and way lower wattage is heating blankets. From 50 - 100w usually on for 50% you get very far with little power. Not sure if that helps anyone. But I spent a lot of time researching efficient caravan alternatives. Ergo. 800 watts can be a lot.

ManBeardPc 1y ago

The awesome part is you can circumvent the 800W. First you can legally install 2000W solar panels, making 800W output much more likely. The 800W is only how much you can feed back into the grid. Second you can install one or more batteries and feed devices from them, further increasing the usable energy.

aitchnyu 1y ago
Can we generate 2 kw, charge batteries and ensure only 800 is fed back at any time?
- detaro 1y ago
  yes
- ManBeardPc 1y ago
  Yes, that is exactly what is happening. 2000W solar panels feed the battery, up to 800W are allowed to be fed back into the grid/house network. Keep in mind you could also plug a 3000W device directly into the battery, meaning you could power a lot more than that if it is not connected to the grid. If you have devices that need little power for a long duration or high power for a short duration they can be fed with 100% solar that way. Depending on your use case that can save further money.