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37
UK supermarkets to start selling plug-in solar panels for £500. But there’s a catch (www.independent.co.uk)
submitted 3 days ago by CAVOK@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org
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[–] timwa@lemmy.snowgoons.ro 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"That system" was not "designed for electric heaters" (I have no idea where this ridiculous myth comes from, ) it was designed to cut costs because copper was expensive after the war.

In-plug fuses do not make it safe, they help mitigate two critical flaws: the first, that a faulty appliance can draw 32A through a 13A cable without blowing the distribution fuse, and secondly (relevant to this case) they make it harder - but not impossible - to unbalance the ring by plugging too much load into a single socket.

But it's only a mitigation, it doesn't make it safe. A standard two-gang wall plate on its own is all that is required to overload the inwall wiring (26A from two sockets on a 24A feed protected by a 32A breaker.) Adding 4A of feed-in as well is a significant bump to the risk of an already unsafe system.

And sure, nobody is going to notice the problem on day 1, and as long as the only electrical appliances you use are mobile phone chargers there is never going to be a problem. But a while down the line when the householder decides to plug in a couple of the new AC units they feel they can now justify because they're powering them off solar, whose maximum draw just happens to coincide with maximum solar production, that's when the smoke will come...

(And that's ignoring the ubiquitous DIY'd spur off the ring for the conservatory or extension, or the accidentally broken ring when someone replaced a wallbox and now they actually have two 24A radials on a 32A fuse - all far from uncommon in any UK house that ever had a home improvement nut living in it.)

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org -4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To me, that looks like scaremongering from the fossil industry. The same as rhe claim that EV cars have not enough reach or often burn up, killing their passengers.

Or that wind power plants kill bats.

Or that with wind and solar instead of going full nuclear, the lights would go off in Germany.

[–] timwa@lemmy.snowgoons.ro 3 points 2 days ago

Then you're an idiot.