Fairly boilerplate article, but the bit that is news is the UK balcony solar permitting. Better longread: https://solarenergyconcepts.co.uk/post/plug-in-solar-uk/
Government press release with a long list of pull quotes: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-make-plug-i...
(I note that in the alternate universe where Ed Miliband became PM because he didn't eat a bacon sandwich, we could have had this a decade ago. It is embarrassing to be beaten on environmentalist regulatory efficiency by Germany)
British industry and standards bodies think this is an unsafe plan.
Of course they would because it's work being taken away from them but it would be allowing people to plug generators into ring finals with unidirectional breakers. It's not even guaranteed that the circuit is protected by anything newer than fuse wire or an MCB. No guaranteed earth leakage detection. No guaranteed surge protection. Relying on the cheapest inverters to sync frequency accurately. And
I have more faith in German standards and work ethic than our own.
I find it interesting because often the best way to achieve a safe building code is to learn by allowing with basic guard rails and iterating as things happen. This isn’t ideal for the rare individual impacted by the “things happening,” but collectively we refine and iterate. Our current standards weren’t arrived at by navel gazing - we got the codes we have by experience. It’s hard to realize that from the present that you can’t reasonably learn without doing and by constraining without learning prevents growth and learning.
"Things happen" is a interesting way to say "houses burn down and kill everyone inside". And I don't believe that electrical standards were developed with the idea that houses could both consume and generate electricity.
Not to mention that most houses aren't up to current electrical standards, much less fire codes.
Are there lessons on safety that need to be learned here? We already know what the happy path looks like, and we've plenty of lessons on what the unhappy path will look like.
It isn't as if electric charge coming from balcony solar panels is some new magical-seeming type of electricity.
Safety is statistical and depends on human behavior. Unexpected behaviors might appear. For example some places require a power outlet on kitchen islands because with out, people will use cords to the wall which creates tripping hazards.
Also, why do wires have to be fixed to joists every 300 mm? It's not about the electrons.
“Unidirectional breakers” aren’t a thing for AC circuits.
Yes they are. Current alternates direction, but power usually only flows in one direction, from the input terminal (from the bus bar) to the output terminal (that the circuit is wired into).
If the circuit will be supplying power too (e.g. battery storage, an EV and EVSE that supports powering the house from the EV, etc) then you need a bidirectional RCBO.
People with no differential fault protection need not worry about any of this, they'll just be killed when it goes badly wrong.
Source: Am a UK electrician
Example: https://assets.cef.co.uk/downloads/pdg/wylex_nhxs1b32_datash...
https://www.bgelectrical.uk/uk/circuit-protection/devices/rc... Right there, both bidirectional and unidirectional breakers.
It would be really interesting to know what's so special about these UK units that they can be "damaged" by being fed from the "wrong" side (as per some other article), considering that the only place where these behave like that is an island north of France.
Not in the US, but in parts of Europe they effectively use AFCI/GFCI breakers for everything.
Those are code in the us now too. (with exceptions for where they don't make sense)
The situation in germany is essentially the same, but that's why net supply by these is limited to 800 W. I don't think anything changes w.r.t. earth leakage, why would the presence of the solar supply change anything from the RCD and fault point of views, respectively?
Not expert but one difference is that in Germany the standard wiring is radial circuits with 16A MCBs while in the UK it's ring wiring with 32A MCBs.
So in the UK we have 2.5mm^2 wires in a ring on a 32A MCBs... Of course a 2.5mm^2 wire is rated ~20A so any issues with the ring (sockets still work since connected from the other branch) can burn the wire before the MCB trips...
The "standard" wiring is 1.5mm² on 16A MCBs which are rated to trip at 1.13-1.45x nominal current (so 18-23 A). So this is already mildly improper because you can pull elevated currents continuously and dramatically shorten the life of the insulation.
He also removed the effective ban on onshore wind construction that was introduced a month after he lost the election, restarting after a decade of lost opportunity.
This Trump-level idiocy that is just never mentioned, even as people blame the gas burned in england on windy days as a cost of wind curtailment, when the curtailment is more a like a third of the cost. Burning gas to power people who chose not to build turbines is the other 2/3rds.
In the alternate world that is tens of billions of gas costs avoided to date and tens of billions more in future.
At the same time they are banning wind turbines leaders (Chinese companies) from opening factories in the UK... [1][2]
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c995xjxk97mo
[2] https://www.energyvoice.com/insights/energy-opinion/594763/m...
Once upon a time, Brits could build gensets and reduction gears. In Britain, even.
That seems rather dumb. I wonder why they blocked the Ming Yang thing in Scotland? The UK seems to make quite a lot of dumb energy decisions like blocking UK North Sea gas and then buying North Sea gas from Norway.
There's just not much gas left in the UK North Sea.
> Industry body Offshore Energy UK (OEUK) claims that more oil and gas could be extracted by 2050. However, the ‘High Case’ scenario for future production in a report for OEUK would still mean that 92% of production has already occurred.
...
> Compared to the maximum oil production that occurred in 1999, UK output in 2025 was 77% (over three-quarters) lower.
https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/around-90-of-uk-north-...
China bad. In case of supply chain attack perhaps. It doesn't matter anyway because the Chinese have basically won by moving forward while others were bikeshedding, focusing on diesel emissions cheat devices, closing down nuclear power stations, burning Russian gas on a windy day, not having a proper grid capacity to move electrons South, delivering brexit and so on.
Yes it is rather 'dumb'. Apparently the policy is to reset relations with the EU so perhaps selling out to Siemens is deemed preferable, or perhaps they got the usual friendly phone call from Washington D.C, it is difficult to follow. And that's the point: Where is the plan? Where is strategic thinking?
> I note that in the alternate universe where Ed Miliband became PM because he didn't eat a bacon sandwich, we could have had this a decade ago
I read what is happening in exactly the opposite way. To me it shows that Milliand and the government at large do very little with no strategic thinking and no plan (same as the guys before in fairness but this government was supposed to be soo different...) and, in this case, is only reacting in a panic after almost 2 years in office to the pressure of "doing something" because of the Iran war, while also being told (slight mitigating circumstances for Milliband) that it mustn't cost anything. I always picture scenes from The Thick of It/ In the Loop when I imagine how they come up with 'ideas'.
These policies were in their manifesto, they just take some time to enact, even with a majority government.
British governments have a terrible record with all eco schemes (mostly handouts to conmen). I don't expect this to be different
And it is of course home-counties obsessed thinking. They can both afford these toys and also have more sun