Plug-in batteries could slash bills for renters and flats — if UK regulators allow them
Plug-in solar is coming. Plug-in batteries should follow
Plug-in batteries, which charge from a wall socket and discharge to offset peak-time electricity, could cut household energy bills by up to £2,400 over a decade, according to Regen. Unlike traditional home batteries, they require no installation, making them accessible to renters, flat dwellers, and low-income households. The UK government recently legalized plug-in solar but has not yet addressed plug-in batteries. Regen urges regulators to update wiring standards and safety rules to unlock these benefits for nearly half of UK households.
With the government commitment to cutting £300 from household energy bills looking increasingly out of reach, introducing a new product to the market that delivers meaningful bill savings at no cost to the Treasury should be one of the easier calls to make.
- chris222
Bluetti already has a product for this available in the EU. I have been posting eveywhere that they need to bring it to the US.
https://www.bluettipower.eu/products/balco-transfer-hub
Balcony solar without storage is actually pretty dumb when we already have integrated battery/inverter/solar mppt units available for a few hundred dollars.
All we need to do is have something like this hub inbetween to ensure grid isolation when an outage occurs.
For crticial loads you would just plug those directly into the all in one battery unit. Almost all of them these day also have a <20ms UPS pass through function as well. When the grid goes down it can isolate the battery from backfeeding the house but the solar will still function and the critical loads will still function.
With a solution like Pila is developing you could even use your homes wiring to transfer power (~1kW) around multiple small battery units (attached to independent circuits) each with some different critical loads and solar attached to them.
- reenorap
Why bother? Power companies will complain they are losing money and regulators will allow them to buy energy from residential solar panels basically for free (NEM 3.0). This is California.
California has spent decades convincing people to convert to solar panels and EVs and now that many have switched, they doubled electricity prices and told us not to charge when it’s too hot. Now they want solar panel owners to pay a surcharge for “connecting to the grid”, upwards of $100/month or more than my actual solar bill. It’s all a scam.
- apexalpha
We've had these for years? My brother has two solar panels on his balcony and plugged into a normal socket.
- Animats
There are several variations on this idea, and the web sites are confusing.
First, there are ones that are just a big UPS. You plug them into the wall, and plug loads into them. They may try to level your power usage. No problem with that. Good for refrigerators. That seems to be what "Pila" is selling. This class of device seems to come with deceptive ads which do not show cords from loads plugged into the box.
Then there are ones that purport to pump power back into their wall outlet.
That has safety issues, starting with its male power plug being an output.
It can't provide power when there's no input power, because it would try to drive the the whole grid during an outage. It's mostly for taking advantage of variable power pricing. This seems to be what "Regen" is selling.
These are apparently available in Germany, but must be installed on their own dedicated circuit, so you don't have a load and a source on the same side of the breaker. Otherwise, you could potentially have an overload without a breaker trip. Regen is trying to get them into the UK, but old UK ring main wiring is a bad match to this. Gotta have a breaker between load and source.
The trouble with these things is that, plugged into the wrong outlet, they create a gap in overload protection that won't show up until something goes wrong.
- satiric
Plugs and sockets have the wrong gender for this. On the battery, you'd have a male plug with live 240v contacts, ready to short against anything, or anyone, that's conductive. This is the same reason why male-to-male extension cords are labeled "suicide cords".
- tempestn
I assume plug-in batteries are considerably more workable in the UK on 240V, since they could charge and deploy at double the rate of a plug-in system here. Of course 240V plugs exist in North America, but they're generally only installed for dryers, ranges, and EV chargers, so people don't tend to have one just free.
- jonatron
I don't see the point in panels without a battery, so I'm looking at a DIY system. RCBO for new circuit = £20, 5.12kWh battery = £700, ~3kW hybrid inverter from eBay ~=£400, Panels ~= £100 each. I'm not the including cost of a registered electrician for a new circuit in my case.
- kazinator
If "everyone" uses plug-in batteries, the peak demand curve will be flattened and the utility companies will likewise flatten the rate. Then there goes the arbitrage; everyone is left with just an expensive piece of emergency equipment for blackouts.