Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Off grid and power walls etc

Fully agree all new buildings should by la have panels & batteries.

Batteries would certainly help with solar but supposing a locality suddenly had PV solar on every roof, where would the excess 240 volts go? Large factories and supermarkets buy electricity in bulk at higher voltages using their own transformers to reduce so it couldn't be absorbed there.

As transformers aren't designed to work in reverse any solar exports have to be absorbed locally within 240 volt distribution. Dumping excess to hot water storage might help a little as would batteries but after that mid summer with all households exporting and hot water tanks bubbling!

Seems there may be advanced battery technology afoot that can create cells that can last 100 years...?

https://youtu.be/Cn8nGE4366M

I ever liked the principals behind hydro electric such as we have in the north of the UK.

True Richard. Free EV charging at peak supply? Or surely if there is excess the panels can shut down.
But right now if you look at your village or mine most house don't have solar so that exces could feed the low voltage grid to the houses and village shop etc.

Would a way forward be to insist that new housing estate builders, instead of having to fit solar panels to houses with all the attendant convertors and pretend exporting to the grid, had to pay for solar panelling to be fitted in the same quantity to the rooves of commercial properties locally. Relatively huge areas with reduced numbers of convertors and meters etc.and proper exporting to the grid. Could be owned by the local authority and energy created used to subsidise cost for poorer people.
Is that so mad?

Not mad. The mechanism exists today - Section 106 funding. Sadly, in our area the complacent local authority end up returning great chunks of cash to developers because they fail to deliver projects within the required timescales.

Just like the social housing that evaporates after plannig approval

Certainly makes more sense Nick. Remember visiting a small chocolate factory in Grenada that was entirely solar/battery powered. The three phase motors on grinding machinery were huge.

This is something that has puzzled me for a while - surely the transformer doesn't have any concept of direction, only step up/down. So how would it know it was in reverse? Just curious....

It is not a strictly true statement a 240V supply could be upgraded by a step up transformer but the design is different & the reverse of those that step down which we have on our grid. At least that is what I remember from physics A level. Primary circuit vs secondary etc