• brandon@piefed.social
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      24 hours ago

      Some of it is probably cynical lobbying from the utilities, but there are legitimate safety concerns with these plug in panel systems, especially if your home has older wiring. If you don’t plug the panels into a dedicated circuit you can end up in a situation where the wires in the wall are passing more current than they are designed for, which is a fire hazard.

      Panels that also put power back onto the grid when there is a power outage can also be a hazard for utility workers and linesmen. Reputable plugin systems should have protection against this, but alibaba/temu tier systems may not.

      • huquad@lemmy.ml
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        24 hours ago

        This is it right here. Firefighters also have to deal with hot voltage. When responding to a house fire, protocol is to kill the power. That works for external, but solar panels will keep the lines hot. Many standard solar deployments include shutoffs right alongside the main breaker shutoff.

        • eleitl@lemmy.zip
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          23 hours ago

          Grid-tied solar inverters are designed to switch off within some 10 ms upon loss of grid voltage.

          • Hal@piefed.nz
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            14 hours ago

            I don’t think this helps in that situation. My battery system will continue powering the house on loss of power from the grid, it just will not feed power back to the grid. That shutoff isn’t that helpful when firefighters are probably worried about the power in the internal wiring.

            • eleitl@lemmy.zip
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              2 hours ago

              The reason for grid-tied inverter shutdown is that they don’t feed back into the grid in case of a shutdown for maintenance. What you’re doing within your home is entirely your problem. Maybe tie your smoke detectors to your inverters/battery so that they’re shut down in case of a fire alarm.

      • pticrix@lemmy.ca
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        15 hours ago

        wait - I’m assuming what you say is true ; so shouldn’t electronics that feed electricity to the box have a different plug than things that leech electricity from the box? Just so you can confirm that the circuit is dedicated and also recently built?

        • Frozengyro@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Yea, when you go to the gas/petrol station there, an attendant will fill your tank. It’s illegal for you to do it yourself there.

          • AviAdi@lemmy.world
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            22 hours ago

            That’s how it was everywhere but things changed. They remained the same in new Jersey though, reinforced by laws of course. The first self service gas station was in 1947. You saved money by pumping it yourself. A few states passed reactionary laws to prevent the change from happening in their states.

            • blargh513@sh.itjust.works
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              19 hours ago

              I miss full serve. You know, they would also wash your windshield and check the oil too.

              That’s why we still have window wash buckets and paper towels at most pumps. Of course, I have noticed that the window wash stations are now being removed. This is why I take an obscene amount of paper towles every time I get gas. Gotta stock up!

      • Kind_to_Everyone@slrpnk.net
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        11 hours ago

        Or maybe because fire codes were written due to all the deaths.

        Now with safe shutoffs and requirements for dedicated circuits, we can allow it.