reply on: Can Solar Rooftops Power the World? \ stacker news ~econ

83 sats \ 9 replies \ @kepford 23 Jul \ parent \ on: Can Solar Rooftops Power the World? econ

Referring to solar generating more electricity than the lines and transformers can handle. Houses are a part of the whole grid system. Grid operators have to ask commercial generators to shut off their systems to avoid damaging their infra.

Or they spin down their power plants. Then when people come home from work the power plants have to spin up to meet the higher demand as the solar generators drop to zero.

This is why they are pushing batteries in homes so hard. It helps offset the demand and ease the curve. But personally I would not put one of those things near my home. I would in an out building a safe distance from the house. Fire risk is real.

95 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 23 Jul

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense

41 sats \ 7 replies \ @petertodd 23 Jul

Just stick the batteries on an exterior brick wall, without anything flammable above them. Not easy to do in every house. But easy to do in a lot of houses.

A building near me has a commercial full-scale Tesla power bank (I suspect to run essential loads during power outages; they don't have any solar afaik). They just installed it at one corner of their parking lot. It's surrounded by concrete so if it ever catches fire, no big deal.

41 sats \ 5 replies \ @kepford 23 Jul

Exactly. But that isn't what people are doing. Not to mention parking their EV in their connected garage.

41 sats \ 4 replies \ @petertodd 23 Jul

Connected garages aren't as dangerous as you'd expect. In most places building codes already require them to have significant fireproofing between the garage and the rest of the building.

Obviously, in many cases the build will pre-date said codes, or builders will cheap out. But this isn't an unsolvable problem.

41 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford 23 Jul

I'm aware of the codes and what you are referring to. Still not good enough for me.

Have you seen an EV fire? Pretty wild thing to watch.

96 sats \ 2 replies \ @petertodd 23 Jul

I've seen videos of EV fires. I've also seen an attached garage fire with a non-EV car – it was so hot you couldn't comfortably stand across the street from it. The house still survived due to the cinder block wall between the garage and house.

Still much less spectacular than the natural gas explosion I once saw... The house that actually exploded was just gone, and every house around it had to be torn down due to massive structural damage. But that explosion was intentional insurance fraud.

51 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 23 Jul

No doubt. A house down the street from me had a gas explosion when I was a kid. Was wild.