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Plug-In Solar Panels Starting to Sprout in U.S. Backyards

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/business/energy-environment/plug-in-balcony-solar.html
23•bookofjoe•58m ago

Comments

bookofjoe•58m ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/business/energy-environme...
CodeWriter23•37m ago
There was a carport fire in my building back in the 90's. The firefighters got all set up to turn their hoses on it but did not actually start using water to fight the fire until the utility guy from the city arrived to de-energize the supply from a nearby vault.

How does that safety protocol work when the electrical connections and supplies are distributed around the house and may be inaccessible due to fire?

Vortigaunt•33m ago
companies that sell plug-in systems argue that safety risks are minimal or nonexistent. Mr. Scherer of Craftstrom said his company’s systems would not shock electrical workers because they shut off automatically within one second of a power disruption or grid outage.

Mr. Boyce of UL Solutions said his company would certify panels only if they did not pose a risk to consumers or utility workers.

0xbadcafebee•32m ago
The device looks for an existing signal from the grid, and if it doesn't find it, it stops feeding power. It even waits for 3-5 minutes before trying again plus some random jitter to avoid thundering herd. It's been a standard in Europe for a while and now finally in the US. This of course depends on the utility and state as not all of them have adopted it but it's quickly becoming the standard everywhere.

IEEE 1547 (interconnection behavior), UL 1741 (inverter product safety), UL 3700 (plug-in solar). (also there are newer revisions you need of some standards like UL 1741)

lokar•7m ago
Also, utility line workers always treat everything as live until they isolate it and confirm it’s not live (or do the work live in some cases).
InsomniacL•29m ago
I imagine the solar panel will detect when the circuit it is plugged in to is de-energised and stop supplying supplemental power to it.
iolo•23m ago
This is exactly how our rooftop solar works. The inverter only supplies ac power if it can sync to the grid frequency meaning that the system disconnects without a live grid connection. Even if I had a battery, this would still be a requirement under local regulations.
micw•24m ago
In Germany, where this kind of plug-in solar panels is very common (1.5 GW installed power) it is mandatory that the inverter powers itself down as soon as the grid is offline/disconnected. It has to be so fast that you can savely touch the plug after unplugging it. I guess it's standard everywhere.
paulsutter•4m ago
Actually the rule is that your solar system must stop feeding power to the utility if the utility is down. You are allowed to run in isolated mode if your system supports that. Yes, even in Germany.
downrightmike•18m ago
Let's just point out that it isn't about the line workers, it is about raising prices on consumers.

They'll replace the line worker at the drop of a hat, and fight tooth and nail to grow profits, that's just how corporations work.

Virus reactivation in acute and long Covid-19

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10740-z
1•thenerdhead•2m ago•0 comments

Tracking down a Zsh history data loss bug – Michael Stapelberg

https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2026-08-09-zsh-history-truncation-bug/
2•tambourine_man•4m ago•0 comments

Employees Do Not Want Your AI

https://substack.com/sign-in
3•Airealist•4m ago•1 comments

The tragedy of the commons, AI edition

https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-ai-edition
4•simonpure•6m ago•0 comments

Beacon: A self-hosted error tracking and LLM observability in one place

https://github.com/Tboworst/beacon
2•Tboworst•8m ago•0 comments

Code Review Assumes an Author

https://blog.raed.dev/posts/ai-code-review/
2•Raed667•8m ago•0 comments

Two wheels, a few tradeoffs, and gas prices

https://blog.raed.dev/posts/motocycle/
2•Raed667•9m ago•0 comments

The AI safety test is becoming a safety risk

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/09/the-ai-safety-test-is-becoming-a-safety-risk/
2•ashurandi•9m ago•0 comments

Greenfield and the Cost of Amnesia

https://thechris.in/articles/greenfield-and-the-cost-of-amnesia/
2•theanonymousone•10m ago•0 comments

CRT-TV-Emulator

https://github.com/AARomanov1985/CRT-TV-Emulator/tree/main
1•xterminal•10m ago•1 comments

Something Is Wrong on the Internet

https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2
2•aloknnikhil•11m ago•0 comments

TPU: Tensor-Processing-Unit – Open-Source Verilog TPU

https://github.com/leo47007/TPU-Tensor-Processing-Unit
1•peter_d_sherman•12m ago•0 comments

US banning Chinese networking tech in data centers

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/us-mulling-ban-on-key-chinese-networking-...
1•Lucasoato•12m ago•0 comments

The Four Core Areas of Responsibility for an Engineering Manager

https://softwareleads.substack.com/p/the-four-pillars-of-engineering-management
1•abiodunjames•12m ago•1 comments

Tiny-GPU – A minimal open-source GPU design in Verilog to learn how GPUs work

https://github.com/adam-maj/tiny-gpu
1•peter_d_sherman•14m ago•0 comments

Anthropic is turning Claude Code's auto mode on by default

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/09/anthropic-is-turning-claude-codes-auto-mode-on-by-default/
3•ashurandi•17m ago•0 comments

Harvesting rainwater from rooftops could cut the number of heatwave days

https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/09/harvesting-rainwater-from-rooftops-could-cut-the-number-of-he...
3•devonnull•20m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Remaking Unreal engine in Rust for coding agents

https://machinesatplay.com
1•kevo1ution•21m ago•0 comments

The OpenAI and Hugging Face incident, explained in simple terms

https://ashu1461.com/posts/openai-hugging-face-incident-in-simple-terms/
4•ashu1461•25m ago•0 comments

A permanent freezing in of wealth is just one of many possible ASI scenarios

https://www.milanmecklenburg.com/p/a-permanent-freezing-in-of-wealth
2•milanmeck•27m ago•0 comments

Nuclear Reactor//Martin Gendell [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwRWRDrfrvA
1•audreyfei•28m ago•0 comments

Ransomware gangs skip the CEO, head straight for the 40-something IT manager

https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/08/09/ransomware-gangs-skip-the-ceo-head-straight-for-t...
8•joebuckwilliams•29m ago•0 comments

A brief introduction to e-beam lithography [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJF9s2MJLLM
2•binyu•29m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Kamod UI – open-code components built natively for Preact

https://kamod-ch.github.io/kamod-ui/
1•zahir777•32m ago•0 comments

LLM Scaler – LLM Support for Intel's Arc Pro B60 and B70 GPUs

https://github.com/intel/llm-scaler
3•peter_d_sherman•33m ago•1 comments

How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

https://laurentiugabriel.github.io/blog/articles/how-i-use-llms-to-learn/
30•laurentiurad•33m ago•15 comments

Ask HN: Are functional programmers more upset about how good AI is at coding?

4•amichail•35m ago•8 comments

Why is Wispr Flow a $2B company?

https://wisprflow.ai
2•strax01•36m ago•1 comments

How do you manage multiple agents?

https://skribbl.dev
1•JawadJalal•39m ago•1 comments

Sigrid helped break a physics barrier that made 3D ultrasound in air possible [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVpznf7gCxs
1•torotime•40m ago•0 comments