Posted on 05/03/2026 7:34:45 PM PDT by WhoisAlanGreenspan?
Interesting concept of solar panel system plugged directly into a household outlet for a do it yourself supplemental power supply. According to the video (and other sources) it's newly legal in Utah and several other states. It's also in wide spread use in Europe.
I know there are several Freepers who have solar power of different types, I've always been interested in the subject but have never gone past solar battery charging for boats or cars or cameras.
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Just shut the main breaker off. Always the first step.
Grid-following inverter (GFL) logic operates the inverter as a current source that synchronizes with the existing grid voltage and frequency rather than creating its own. The core control objective is to inject specific active ($P$) and reactive ($Q$) power by modulating the output current vector to match grid setpoints.
And I should have added, it shuts down if the grid power supply stops. So it’s useless in a power failure, but that’s not it’s purpose.
I have ~800 W of solar panels.
They are here for backup power should I get dropped off the grid.
I have a number of deep cycle batts and some sine wave inverters.
My local Coop provides power @ a marginal rate of ~$0.07/kWh. All other costs/prices/mo. are fixed.
Not much incentive to produce power to consume here or send off to them [I’d be paying them $0.07/kWh] during the day when the house power consumption is on the order of low 100s of Watts [except when running the electric dryer.]
“The reason is because linemen or technicians on that line could be electrocuted. This generally requires a disconect switch from the mains.”
For a conventional generator, very true. In this case, I suspect the inverter does that job. All the inverter has to do is shut off output power for a millisecond and then see if output voltage collapses - if there’s no other source (i.e., grid power), then the output voltage will collapse, if there is a source, it stays at 120V. Do that once per second.
I also have some Grid-tie inverters for fooling around, using Kill-a-watt meters to see what is going on.
Seems odd why that would be anyone’s setup.
That link is for Michigan, the land of two or three sunny days between November and March. You should be able to backwards navigate to your State from my link.
Please elaborate.
As cool as an off-grid solar or whatever, homestead might be, this isn’t that at all. It’s a way to reduce the electricity utility costs in any home and pay back the costs of installation in just a few years, not decades.
Now I have battery backups (Tesla power walls) and add’l solar so now my electricity stays on whenever there is an outage - and our development lost power for about two days but we didn't. It cost a lot but I did it as piece of mind and to make sure that my wife's medical equipment didn't lose power. Excess feeds back into the grid and for 11 months last year we had no bill from the power company. Now I say no bill but we have to pay a “stay hooked up to the grid” bill monthly because these people can't go cold turkey from our money.
I assume a system like being discussed in the article is to reduce consumption by adding electricity to the home at no cost, I also assume that it shuts down if the grid goes down again so repairmen don't have to worry about electricity feedback.
On my system they put something in that automatically keeps the electricity in my house and any excess goes into the batteries. Just my two cents.
$1400 for (max) 800w? Massive upcharge IMO.
Inverter in Amazon link is this one: https://northernep.com/products/microinverters/bdm-800 which a search turns up https://solartekcorp.com/products/nep-bdm-800-micro-inverter for $220. Quick search on 200w panels turns up a 4-pack for $400, so this ‘kit’ is doubling the cost of just buying stuff.
Smart plug as shown is $35. https://shop.emporiaenergy.com/products/emporia-smart-plug-home-energy-monitoring-outlets?variant=46166322315519 and is totally optional for fun or those people who love to have an app for everything.
Other variants exist; this has a (hopefully accurate?) hint on where it’s legal: https://ussolarsupplier.com/blogs/news/plug-in-solar-guide-2026
Quick tech read suggests these are intended to shut off when the grid does so no backfeed to hit linemen, but also no good when the power’s out either. Also grey area so if something happens and you’re not in Utah I’d expect you’re paying for repairs. Thirdly these are smallish and while 1200w isn’t nothing it’s not self-sufficiency either.
I've priced out solar panels and systems that I never spent anymore than engineering design time on, and found a great deal of price fluctuation on, so there's still hope I assume.
Seems reasonable, typical design safety factor. 15a = 1800w / 120v.
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