No. For more details read the article.
More and more US States have proposed legislation (bills) to legalise plug-in-pv and in the UK the Energy Minister(s) have anounced they want to legalise pluginsolar, too. We are not sure if in any of these jurisdiction pluginsolar was illegal in the first place, but we welcome these moves.
A great concern by English Speaking people seems to be the fact, that you harm yourself with a „suicide cable“, a cable with two plugs on it. Such cables are dangerous but, they are not used with pluginpv systems!
Don’t compare your plug in diesel generator with a plug in pv system!
I seems Amercians use diesel or fuel generators when there is a longer power outage to power a circuit from a generator. That is fine as long as: The socket you plug it in has been designed for that and there is a switch in your house that seperates that building or parts of it from the grid. If you want that, you will have to have such a change-over switch in your fusebox.
With that you can seperate your house from the public grid and then plug in your generator and then power your house.
Such arangements are common in Ukraine for example:
Now these systems are designed to make a so called „island grid“, they are off grid and supposed to power a limited amount of consumers. They can not sync to a grid.
Portable gas and diesel generators are sold freely at hardware stores across the United States and Europe without any pre-purchase utility notification, permit requirement, or interconnection agreement. A homeowner may purchase a generator of any wattage—commonly 2,000 to 7,500 watts for residential use—and operate it with minimal regulatory oversight. The principal safety requirement governing residential generator use is that the unit must not be connected to household wiring without an approved transfer switch.
Apparently in the US people who do not understand, that they have to sperate their house from the grid before they plug in their diesel generator, endanger line workers. Because these generators are much more powerful than pluginpv, the electrical power can travel from your house and re-energized the powerline. It may even go through the transformer which then steps it up from 120 volts (US) to 7,200 volts—the full distribution voltage.
All that can’t happen with a pluginpv system!
Plug-in-PV
Plug-in-Solar Systems without a battery are not designed for that. The inverters you can buy as part of these packages, all shut down within less then a second if there is no grid on the other side. Inverters have a mandatory automatic cease-to-energize requirement and that is usually built redudantly.
Because consumers can unplug the system as any plugged in device and we don’t want them to get an electric shock, these systems power off immediatly. In fact how fast this has to happen was a major discussion point in the german technical standards discussion. And the comittee degreed 1 second, which is stricter then other household appliances.
Now we have systems that have a battery and these can supply emergency power. That usually happens on one outlet directly on the battery onto which you can attach your devices that you need.
Buying tipps
For Consumers outside Germany we can only give these tipps:
- choose brand name inverters, such as Hoymiles
- use proper mounting
- enjoy