[Aurornis]

I don’t understand why this specific product is being upvoted. It’s not a good deal, it’s a very low power system, and it tries to get you to pay a subscription fee.

This is an ad for a poor deal and I think some are upvoting before they click. I hope nobody buys it before doing some comparison shopping.

[tencentshill]

Plug-in solar is very new in the US. They just banned all chinese inverters so solar is going to get a lot more expensive anyways.

[Spunkie]

    > "They just banned all chinese inverters"

That's news to me, when did that happen?

[dlcarrier]

They banned importing internet-connected foreign-produced inverters. (https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-423682A1.txt) They are perfectly legal to sell without built-in connectivity, and external monitoring methods aren't prohibited. The concern is that a coordinated network attack on solar inverters could bring down the power grid.

They don't go into details, but check out the Aurora Generator Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Generator_Test Running solar inverters in opposite phase to the grid would likely not immediately damage them, instead they would draw the amount of power they'd normally provide. In some parts of the US, especially during peak summer demand, even a small percentage of solar power doing this could cause a cascading outage, knocking entire multi-state power grids offline. (See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003)

Granted, this could still happen with compromised US-produced inverters, but it's something we should be paying close attention to and planning around.

[epistasis]

Edit: and there it is, the post has been flagged, to be kept off the front page and suppressed from discovery.

Most people in the US don't know that things like this even exist, so it's novel, new, and interesting.

Our media environment and politics have kept us away from broad understanding of current technology and possibilities. The US also has Stockholm-syndrome levels of subservience to HOAs, too, for example. When it comes to clean energy, regulation is assumed to be impossible to change, as is the grid. (But when it comes to energy for data centers, all regulations can be changed, and boy will the grid undergo changes, all billed back to residential ratepayers...)

It's hard to overstate just how bad the US is when it comes to the random person understanding hot-button Fox news topics like EVs and solar and wind and batteries.

[Aurornis]

If you want to share information about balcony solar, submit a neutral link explaining it.

Don’t submit an admit for a product that comes with a subscription.

[epistasis]

I don't want to submit information solar, I want to consume it, and in particular I'd like to know about this ad/sales page, whatever it is.

HN is filled with commercial sales pitches, and even encourages self-promotion.

I can't be certain why this one type of product suddenly gets people saying "no ads," but I have my suspicions.

[SirFatty]

"Most people in the US don't know that things like this even exist,"

Exactly how would you know that?

[epistasis]

Talking to people in real life. Comments on articles like this. The fact that it's only legal in a handful of states...

[walrus01]

> Edit: and there it is, the post has been flagged, to be kept off the front page and suppressed from discovery.

it wasn't flagged because of some nefarious plan to suppress people from knowing about this, it was flagged because it's marketing bullshit. There's lots of really good material out there about DIY solar and this isn't it.