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Downstream loads, or backfeed the house through a suicide cord? Somebody offered that before: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/home-plugin-battery-companies.25832/#post-305400 https://diysolarforum.com/threads/home-plugin-battery-companies.25832/post-305029

"They also receive special classes and observe how customers react when they stare at the goods" Uh, what "goods"?

I thought you meant backfeed house wiring from battery when grid was down (would have required communication with a disconnect switch at the meter), but that doesn't seem to be the case. So I guess only downstream loads plugged into the battery inverter get backup...

230/400Y, less useful for US customers. 120/208Y could work for most of us. Use 2 legs for the house, have 3-phase for shop. Lots of apartments and condos have 2-leg 120/208, so if you did set that up with your inverters everything should work. I've tried several ways to couple 120/240V grid...

The only thing you can't curtail is rooftop PV. (to be curtailable in the future.) Of course, probably have to keep a certain percentage of rotating generation on line for stability and regulation. https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/ If Arizona curtailed PV, it was...

SMA Sunny Island uses frequency shift to curtail production from Sunny Boy AC coupled PV inverters. At one time, SMA sold Smart Load 6000, which was a PF corrected AC to DC converter, able to take the requested amount of power and divert it to heating elements...

The last kWh exported may have negative value, but the vast majority were put to use, avoiding combustion of fossil fuel. The total savings in power generation plus the total amount paid to Arizona to accept our surplus (they curtailed their own production to take PG&E's money) should be...

Hybrid with same AC wattage rating, or limited to same. Higher efficiency/wattage panels in same footprint as old. The extra production goes to battery, to be used/exported later. He can get permission to add battery while keeping NEM x.x, so if he had say Sunny Boy, could replace it with Sunny...

Utility will require UL-1741-SB or similar for backfeed. The older inverters are only UL-1741. If loads always exceed PV output, they will never notice. e.g. if you connect after the thermostat relay and motor thermal overload switch of your A/C, Sunny Boy will start operating 5 minutes after...

Victron instructions say to match wire resistance precisely. I think the firmware is designed to make output "stiff" not sagging in voltage with current. Compare to Sunny Island, there is a parameter set by default to simulate resistance and let voltage droop, facilitating current sharing...

Permanently connected, the 3% or whatever imbalance built into Victron auto-transformer would try to imbalance the grid. One of the Youtubers showed a GroWatt auto-transformer drawing excessive current trying to rebalance the grid. It may or may not be OK for you, depending on your grid...

But then I have to worry about lost neutral, if it fails to close relay. That can over-voltage a load.

At $24 vs. my present $10 or $12 minimum monthly payment, I'm not going to worry about it. To boil a frog without it jumping out of the pot, raise the heat slowly. PG&E is allowed to make a profit up to 8% of assets. Could make less, if operations aren't doing well. Are those assets...

I think this shows relay bonds neutral to ground, which is what's done for mobile application. https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet-Autotransformer-32A-and-100A-EN.pdf What I would feel like doing, for a stationary application, is keep neutral of output always hard-wired to...

Imbalance meaning larger 120V load on L1 than on L2, or vice versa. Two 15A 1800W loads on one side would be too much. Note also the voltages aren't symmetric; Victron reused a 220V isolation transformer, with secondary voltage a few percent higher. Don't think that causes any trouble. I'd...

Unless it is Gold Plated.

It began life as an isolation transformer. For those, you make the output a few percent high no-load, and under full load output is a few percent low. Not sure, isolation may have been for safety on a boat or something? Anyway, it got reconfigured as an asymmetric auto-transformer. Which might...

Victron seemed to get this right, unlike some other brands which offered an auto-transformer to slap on a European 220V inverter and use on US 120/240V split-phase grid. Those designs, we kept finding ways to electrocute the hapless user, overheat the transformer, or over-voltage the loads. I...

That schematic looks funny. I don't think auto-transformer is supposed to bypass inverter and make second path to grid. I think its centertap neutral gets isolated when grid provides power relative to neutral, so L1/L2 just see it as an inductor. Then when grid is disconnected, it's center tap...

Most loads would register as loads, with net consumption. I'm just thinking of how power drawn from one 120V leg and backfed into the other 120V leg could look like net backfeed. It would involve drawing current at higher voltage, feeding back at lower, which seems unlikely first glance...

When connecting a pair of MC4 (one will be male, one will be female), if you can't see the far end (of extension cable, PV panel, PV array) is unconnected, then for all you know you are about to complete a circuit. At that point I use DMM to probe the two connectors and measure voltage, before...

I think meter looks at L1 to L2 voltage and separate L1 & L2 current. A 240V inductive load would have power cycling in and out, but always net consumption over a cycle. Wonder if a transformer that also touched N, trying to rebalance, could skew voltages so even though net power was consumed...

150A main breaker is for up to 120A continuous current (either loads or backfeed, but don't worry about sum of those two.) 200A main panel busbar x 120% = 240A 240A - 150A main breaker = 90A backfed breaker allowed. (Or did you say a 225A busbar was put in it? Would be nice to have a sticker...

I understand how you feel about rooftop PV customers zeroing their net consumption and avoiding paying for grid. But excluding that case, just considering people who simply buy and use power from the grid, I think it is better to have zero baseline charge and bundle infrastructure into kWh...

MC4 connectors? That makes it touch safe. Just don't connect into a load or short circuit. So long as a panel has both wires disconnected, you can plug a wire into it. Repeat with it's one remaining disconnected wire, plugging into next panel that has both wires disconnected. When you get to...

No room for Svetz in the world of perfect people.

Yes, you're just a few years late. I spent $100k and got $50k CEC rebate. No, I was 20 years too early and paid $8/W for the system, $4/W after rebate. Grid tie only, no batteries. You could do much better. Maybe $3/W for turnkey system, not counting batteries. You can carry the $30k forward...

The main consideration with parallel paths is current may not split equally. That can result in one conductor failing, cascading to the others. Or tripping breakers, if each conductor protected.

I'll take that as a challenge. Let me see if "Always" might sometimes be wrong. "Negative Resistance" comes to mind first. No, I don't think that is the exception which proves the rule, would decrease resistance further. Consider measuring resistance of a conductor, and then connecting a...

Do you see any indication of cycle life? https://www.batteriesdirect.com.au/files/products/UXH125-6FR1591247153_1.pdf I think they will be good as backup during occasional power failures. With PV, they can recharge and float during the day while loads are powered by PV. Don't know how many...

New car today maybe. I paid $11k for a 4 year old Sable with 4000 miles back in 2001. That's $40/month. Add $15 for registration, $40 for insurance, still under $100/month. Then whatever per-mile operating expenses like fuel, tires, fluids, repairs. At today's fuel prices, $0.28/mile. Tires...

"The bolt is there to just clamp." Only a fraction of current goes through the bolt, so conductive doesn't really help anything. Contact resistance depends on pressure. Contact is just at a few high points. I've certainly encountered this in a number of situations. Although not in the bolts...

I was thinking of "C" shape, or twisted to accomplish it. But you're right. I'm getting slow. Not sure if it is due to Long Covid, Long Vax, or Long Electrocution.

I only meant that to not be limited to 120% rule for 100A panel (20A breaker, 16A continuous, if main breaker is 100A. Doesn't help upstream panels. You do need to address that panel. I thought 120% was applied based on the backfed breaker (which supplies 100A panel) but maybe these days it...