Extracted from that article with my comments:
1. "Unlike plugs on ordinary appliances, a solar panel's plug can be electrically conductive with the device unplugged, which may surprise unwary customers." a. There is technology in place today to mitigate that hazard. Implementation of that protection is straight forward. 2. "Plug-in solar must also power down in the case of a local blackout." a. Protection from unintentional islanding is a well understood and established protection scheme and can be applied easily to plug-in inverters 3. "Plug-in panels inject power into the home electrical system downstream of circuit breakers and other overcurrent protections, making those safeguards blind to the extra load." a. Absolutely, but that could be solved by edits to national electrical code requiring plug-in grid-tie inverters to use a dedicated circuit. (one outlet/one circuit breaker) But, how to enforce it if customers likely won't register their balcony solar? 4. "Electricity flowing backward through the GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter), the electrical safety device built into power outlets, could cause GFCIs to fail." b. I'm skeptical about this one. GFCIs measure the current as a scalar quantity, meaning that direction of current is not sensed. They're not smart devices. 5. "For example, the bidirectional GFCI disconnect is not yet commercially available." c. I don't think that is an issue. GFCI measure imbalance between conductors passing through its differential transformer. It's 'blind' to direction of current (the sign of the power factor PF) Circuit breakers are also "blind" to direction of current are unaffected. 6. "Now, Germans can buy plug-in panels at Aldi or Ikea, and the country has more than 2 gigawatts of balcony solar <https://www.epri.com/research/products/000000003002035544> deployed. " a. That represents a very large number of balconies deploying solar! Has it been a problem in Germany? I will have a close look at UL3700. Ralph (from smoke-free coastal British Columbia) From: Richard Nute <[email protected]> Sent: July 31, 2026 6:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [PSES] Balcony Solar Hello from wildfire Oregon: Safety considerations for solar panels small enough they can plug into a typical household outlet, including a GFCI outlet. UL 3700. <https://spectrum.ieee.org/plug-in-solar-power> https://spectrum.ieee.org/plug-in-solar-power Enjoy, Rich _____ This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ <https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/%20> Website: https://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pses/ <https://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pses/> Instructions: https://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pses/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) <https://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pses/list.html> List rules: https://pses.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/EM-PSTC-List-Rules.pdf For help, send mail to the list administrators: Mike Sherman at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Rick Linford at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> _____ To unsubscribe from the EMC-PSTC list, click the following link: https://listserv.ieee.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=EMC-PSTC <https://listserv.ieee.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=EMC-PSTC&A=1> &A=1 - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Website: https://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pses/ Instructions: https://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pses/list.html (including how to unsubscribe) List rules: https://pses.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/EM-PSTC-List-Rules.pdf For help, send mail to the list administrators: Mike Sherman at: [email protected] Rick Linford at: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <[email protected]> _________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the EMC-PSTC list, click the following link: https://listserv.ieee.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=EMC-PSTC&A=1
