Plug & Play Solar In Germany

March 22nd, 2013 by Dr. Karl-Friedrich Lenz

Reposted from Lenz Blog:

Craig Morris posted about small Plug & Play solar panels in Germany, under the title of “The danger of solar after grid parity“.

Since I don’t think that solar energy is dangerous, I was not happy about that headline. One of the “dangers” discussed in the article is that some very small solar panels might not be reported to the network operator. I call these Plug & Play solar, and they have been extensively discussed at Photovoltaikforum.

To get an idea of that, again, look at Frank Farenski’s documentary “Leben mit der Energiewende”, where he has some footage of these systems standing around. Basically, these are normal solar panels with an inverter and a battery integrated, so costumers may just plug them into any outlet in their homes.

As for the legal side, it is clear that there is no duty for a consumer to register these Plug & Play systems with the German Bundesnetzagentur under Article 17 of the Law on Priority for Renewable Energy. That duty, introduced in 2009, is only relevant if someone wants to collect feed-in tariff payments, which is not the case for these very small scale systems that are only for self consumption.

As mentioned above, there is a lively discussion on if there is a duty to report on this kind of Plug & Play system to the relevant network utility at Photovoltaikforum. I am not sure about what a court would say on this matter right now.

But I think there should be no duty to register these systems. There is no duty to register your refrigerator either. As long as there are no security concerns (which are difficult to imagine with the low power we are talking about), everybody should be free to buy one of these systems without any hassle.

I recall that Lawrence Lessig came to Tokyo for a lecture in December 2002 and spoke about the upcoming Supreme Court decision in the Eldred case. At the time, he mentioned the principle of network neutrality, and pointed to an electric outlet in the room, noting that anybody is basically free to plug in any appliance to the electrical network, and that having the same principle for communication was the principle of “network neutrality”.

And it is true. I can buy any television, refrigerator, computer, whatever, and plug it into my outlet without registering all these appliances with my utility, or getting approval from anybody.

That principle is important, and it should be true for electricity as well as for the Internet. Of course, there may be issues of security that have to be worked out, but these should be worked out in exactly the same way as with all electric appliances. That is, the maker of the Plug & Play solar panel needs to make sure there is no danger of electricity leaking or of fire, and the consumer does not need to worry about these matters.

Germany had over 32 GW of PV installed at the end of 2012. That’s a world record, and it’s impressive. But it is still less than 400 W per capita. Have every citizen buy on average two of these Plug & Play systems and put them on their balcony, and you easily get to more than double that. That makes economic sense for the consumer, since the price for generating with such a Plug & Play solar panel is now under the average price people pay their utility for electricity.

For the very least, there should be more of these Plug & Play systems sold in Germany than there are cars. That would be 53.6 million, so 60 million Plug & Play systems (adding up to 14.7 GW at the 245 W a panel noted in Morris’ post above) should be the absolute minimum goal.

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Tags: Germany, germany plug and play solar, Germany Solar, plug and play solar, plug and play solar germany

About the Author

Dr. Karl-Friedrich Lenz is a professor of German and European Law at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, blogging since 2003 at Lenz Blog. A free PDF file of his global warming science fiction novel "Great News" is available here.

Benni Söder

i don’t think you can compare plugging in a television with plugging in the solar panel. TV takes energy from the electric system, but solar p & p feeds the electricity into teh system. that’s a lot more dangerous. for any german users, who are interested in this field: http://www.energie-tipp.de/neue-energie/sonne/4161201. it discusses the problem extensively.

cheers.
Jonathan

It’s my understanding that the Queensland government bending to pressure under the rising cost of renewable energy passed on to private households without renewable energy, which has caused an increased electricity cost over 17%.from rooftop solar power alone this year. Queensland government Campbell Newman table a report last week stating that houses which have installed rooftop grid connected solar power have been taking advantage of the system, and most likely able to afford to pay their power bills, therefore the government considering to tax rooftop solar power like that in Germany, solar power solidarity tax, after recent field trip to Germany.

It is most likely that solar power solidarity tax will come into effect by the end of this year in order to stop the electricity cost from blowing out.
http://twitter.com/Kf_Lenz Karl-Friedrich Lenz

I am no specialist on the technical side of electricity security. But what I’ve read is that you can actually cause a fire with these Plug & Play solar panels, if you put a lot of effort into it.

The problem comes from the fact that the panels will feed power to the house circuit behind the circuit breakers. If you have more than 10 Plug & Play solar panels hooked up in line, this additional power may be enough to overheat wires, without a circuit breaker to automatically stop the flow of power.

On the other hand, if plugging in one single 245 W solar panel is enough to overheat the wires, the circuit breaker is clearly running without the necessary safety margin.

Anyway, these issues of safety are important. Makers of Plug & Play panels need to address them. Of course, unsafe products need to be kept from the market by adequate regulation, just as with every electric appliance around.
- Ronald Brakels
  
  Any solar micro-inverter would have to cut off if the voltage was too high to be sold in Australia. I really doubt that wouldn’t be the case in Germany as well.
Antonio IPC

Of course the inverter needs to be serviced just like any thing; regular inspections need to take place to see whether the PCB and its componentry are failing to excessive voltage damage. I have these in my workshop on a regular basis blown-up; most grids tied inverters fail all because too high voltage DC Damage exposed to the elements dust and water, in some cases cockroaches had made their home inside them.
- Ronald Brakels
  
  This is Australia we’re talking about. It can cost more to have your Sydney house cleaned for eight hours than to buy a new inverter. The sensible thing for Australians to do with their solar inverters is nothing. If it fails within its 10 year replacement warranty you get it replaced for free. If it fails outside of warranty you pay for a new one. If you don’t have the money to buy a new one then you stack groceries on a supermarket shelf for $23 an hour until you do have enough money. Or you do what I do and steal deposit bottles from people’s recycling. Either way, there is no way the typical Australian has the time or knowledge to do anything worthwhile with their inverter. As for paying someone to come and maintain it, that doesn’t make sense because two maintenance trips could equal the cost of a new inverter.
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  i’m leaving this piece of trolling spam up simply because it is so hilarious. thanks for the laugh.
dkatsis

Any grid-tied inverter is fair game for plug and play. Inverters meant for solar (with a UL or ETL sticker) are going to be safe for utility workers because they are tested to strict standards for safety. The main problem is HIGH VOLTAGE DC. So use a low voltage inverter like one of the many enphase micros or low-voltage Athena Energy string inverters to keep you safe from the DC-side. I dont know why an inverter needs to be “serviced” every three months either, maybe to clean the dust off of it?
Ronald Brakels

I don’t really see how reporting ‘plug and play’ solar would really tell electricity retailers anything they don’t already know from looking at what’s happening to the grid. And will people have to report their plug and play solar each time they move? Or even each year when they dust it off and plug it in for the summer? If the voltage rises too high then the panels should cut out so the only real danger should be people not getting any benefit out of them at times.
- Jim
  
  Are you an omitting negligence that grid tied solar systems inverters lift up the voltage dangerously high which caused damage to neighbours equipment. Since when the solar panels cut out, are you applying their short-circuit within the solar array panels when the voltage is too high leading to house fires.
  - Ronald Brakels
    
    Yes! I am the Omitting Negligence! Bow down before my might!
http://soltesza.wordpress.com/ sola

Plug & Play systems DO pose a threat to the utility workers if they don’t automatically shut down when the mains power is cut off for maintenance. Grid-tie inverters do this automatically.
- Ronald Brakels
  
  It’s hard to believe it would be legal to sell them if they didn’t shut down.
  - Luke
    
    And could you assume that your grid inverter is safe? When was the last time you got someone to maintenance your inverter or a service? I service my grid inverter every three months as to the Australian standard compliance ruling. I have log book maintenance reports records, to comply under the rules professional electronic engineers technicians perform all my maintenance requirements to comply with the Australian standard. I must assume that you don’t do these things if you’re concerned about what is legal, or understand your position under the contract which you would be assign, as the assignee under the agreement to export electricity back into the grid.
    
    Luke
    - Ronald Brakels
      
      I’m looking at an inverter right now and wondering just what you could possibly do to it when you service it. It does have both male and female sockets.
- doug card
  
  Not if they are corectly trained
- Bob_Wallace
  
  I’d think at this point all utility workers would assume that all lines are hot unless they are holding both ends in front of them in good light.
  
  There are so many ways of getting power onto the grid other than what comes from the utility itself that I don’t see how anyone would even start to assume a line is dead simply because they cut it off between them and the utility. Even a line which has been checked and found dead might suddenly spring to life when someone cranked up their portable generator.
- http://twitter.com/SolarIsolator RemoteSolarIsolator
  
  But the solar panels are still generating power. Why not fully isolate each panel from a flick of a switch or when the mains are turned off.