Solar in a Box
Here’s a video our neighbor Don’s friend Josh made about something I’ve wanted to push solar companies on for a while. In the same way that Samsung and Sony make flat screen TVs that I can buy in a box, bring home, plug in and start watching, there should be a similar ease of use for small solar kits.
Q: What makes a Solar-In-A-Box hub different from existing solar power inverters?
There are two types of solar inverters available today - grid-tied and non-grid-tied.Grid-tied inverters take the electricity generated by the solar panels and feed it back into the electrical grid. This is a very complicated process because the inverter must be exactly in sync with the electrical power being generated by the local utility. The grid-tied inverter must also meet very stringent regulatory requirements because it could potentially effect a large number of people. The existing grid-tied inverters are fantastically engineered to meet all these difficult requirements, but all this extra functionality makes them expensive to produce. Because they feed power backwards, they must be hard-wired into a dedicated breaker on your electrical system. This usually has to be done by a qualified electrician.
Non-grid-tied inverters are not attached to the grid at all so they are much simpler and cheaper than grid-tied inverters. Because they are not connected to the grid, they typically must rely on batteries to supply power when a cloud goes by or at night. Batteries are big and expensive and inefficient.
The Solar-In-A-Box hub is the best of both worlds. Because it only sends power to the directly connected load and never back into the grid, it does not need all the extra complication that a grid-tied inverter needs. When the solar panels are not supplying electricity, the hub can draw power from the grid as needed, avoiding the need for batteries.
Q: Is this net metering?
No. With net metering, when you make more power than you need you send the excess power back to the grid and that turns your meter backwards. Then, some other time when you need more power than you are generating (at night) you draw from the grid and your meter runs forward again.
With Solar-In-A-Box, you never send electricity back into the grid. You use any available solar power when it is generated, and use grid power when solar power is not available. This means that Solar-In-A-Box typically does not reduce the amount of electricity you buy at night, but only during the day when the sun is shinning (unless you also plug a windmill power source into your hub).
Q: Is this better than net metering?
Theoretically, net metering is perfect - if you make more solar power than you can use, you can share it with everyone else on the grid. This typically happens on hot, sunny days which is exactly when the grid really needs some extra power. Even better, the power you are making is put on the edge of the grid where you and your neighbors live, so it doesn’t have to travel over long transmission lines to get to where it is needed most (lots of power is lost during transmission). Then, later that night when you need some power to watch TV, you can take back some of what you gave at a time when there is not as much demand on the grid.
Unfortunately, there are some complications. The biggest one is that net metering depends on you sending power to your local electric company. This means dealing with lots of regulation and bureaucracy. In practice, this makes grid-tied solar systems difficult and expensive to install. You are not even allowed to do net metering in some states. I wish it were not true, but it is- and there is no realistic way to change it in the near future.
Because Solar-In-Box never sends power back into the electric grid, the whole system works just like any other electrical product you’d connect to your electric company. There are no special regulations or agreements, you just plug it in.
I think net metering would be the cure to all our woes in an ideal world. Alas, we need practical solutions that can actually work in the world we live in today. Solar-in-a-box is all about doing something now that has a real and practical impact.
Q: What happens if my solar panels are making more power than my load is using?
Because the Solar-In-A-Box hub can not send excess back into the grid, any solar power that is not used is lost. To make sure you efficiently use all the solar power that is being generated, you need to plug in appropriate sized loads into the hub. Ideally, you’d want to to plug in enough stuff to a hub to use slightly more electricity than the solar panels can produce, this way you’ll always use all the power generated. Loads that use a constant amount of power during times when the sun is shining are perfect (think computers, air conditioners). You don’t get any benefit by connecting something that you only use at night.
For more visit Josh’s website. He makes some good points about the difference between an ideal world and creating solutions for the world we live in.
Peter Cervieri is co-founder of and Director of Business Development for ScribeMedia.Org. His fetish is collecting business cards.
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