How to organise a solarfeed-in boycott

The systems are probably riddled with security vulnerabilities. I say organise a small group of people to announce that they're turning off their supply on purpose, then hack a large number of other user's systems to cause them to do it unwillingly. Then the regulators are left thinking that your small group is actually much bigger than it looked. :)

Interesting idea, but how many systems are internet connected? Certainly mine won't be.

Sylvia.

They recently installed a "Smart" meter here. It has a cellular connection and sends data home every half hour. I don't know what control capabilities there are if any through it.

I had thought of a similar arrangement: When I read that one of the utilities was charging customers with PV a higher service charge because of "the greater strain they place on the network" or some such rubbish, I thought a good way to help the utility with this problem: Monitor the wholesale price (I understand it can be viewed on the internet) and help out the utility on those hot summer days when the grid is under most strain, and the wholesale price goes above say $2/kWh, and shut down the inverter automatically at just those times, because the poor electricity retailer's network would really be suffering, with the strain of the householder's PV inverter feeding in power at 6c/kWh at those times, when it really should be coming from a gas fired power station at full wholesale price.

You would want to be careful about causing any actual blackouts though, as renewables get blamed even when they have nothing to do with the cause of a blackout, so imagine the witch hunts and hostility if you (and a million other householders that you'd probably need) succeeded in making it true. Rather than prompting the regulator to make you get paid fairly, they would more likely embolden various politicians to ban or tax-to-death grid-connected solar power. So to not cause a real blackout, you'd probably want your co-conspirators to start feeding in again when the grid frequency actually starts dropping badly - but that is not allowed by the mandatory anti-islanding features of the inverters

- they are legally required to shut down when the grid is collapsing.

There is a company called Reposit, that (in some areas) allows you to work with a retailer who will compensate you more fairly for helping to generate power when the wholesale price is high. Perhaps that is a less antisocial option.

I don't really know about these feed-in systems. I assumed they'd all be internet connected so that the power companies know how much power you've contributed, but I guess they use the smart meters for that?

First get your solar panels. Then go on facebook. This is politics again, not electronics.

Did the subject line mislead you?

Sylvia

Ask PM Turnbull to join in - he has 14 kW worth of panels on his house.

Yes.

BTW, I've been doing a bit of research, and it appears to me that he should have obtained planning permission (over 10kW requires it), but that he didn't get it - no relevant DA for his property.

Sylvia.

Did the newsgroup name mislead you?

As there is no general electrical NG a lot of us now put electrical discussions here as most electronic people know a bit about electricity. And the politics of electrical distribution fits

Odd that there's no aus.general etc. The NZ newsgroup heirarchy has nz.general *and* nz.politics as well as regional groups.

Also as I'm sure you know theres a big difference between 'electrical' and 'electronic'. Even bigger between electronic and political / industrial boycotts related to electricity.

Cheers,

So you want to keep your electronics pure? Don't let any discussion of electrics taint your group? There would not be one without the other and as there is no general electrical group people do the sensible thing and share. Most electrical people share an interest with electronics They would not be snobs excluding others.

Your inferrence that I'm being an 'electronics snob' is incorrect and a strawman - I objected to the OP due to it being mainly political in nature. The elecrtical / electronics thing was an 'also'.

Actually there's exactly that:

Regional groups are under bne.* canb.* melb.* syd.* wa.*.

I think it's probably better than waiting for one on-topic thread a month, which seems to be the point at which a newsgroup begins to die completely.

If people can get into the habit of starting Off Topic threads with "[OT]", many newsreaders can be configured to filter out such threads.

Yes to that! Preface with OT and it's much better.