this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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That's everything I've been talking about, you even go on to exhaustively quote what I've said that answers this question. Did you have a reason for saying this other than being combative? No, seriously, I really care about this subject and it's clear you do too. And the most hardline thing I've said is that home battery walls and solar installs aren't very good right now, and that local-grid installs are superior (I expand on that below). Surely there's more constructive ways this could be approached.
Anyways, a couple points:
BESSFID (the common initialism? Not sure!) does not track interlock failures, which after them falling on you is the most directly dangerous aspect of both battery walls and standby generators. Unexpectedly energized lines are not something an average user understands, which is why it's responsible for so many dead linemen. Generators (and now battery walls) feeding back into the grid during an outage are the #1 cause of unexpectedly energized lines, and this is very basic knowledge. It's why every municipality requires a generator interlock be installed at the box for home-consumption power generation. No grid in the world is yet robust enough to prevent this danger.
Yes and no! While yes batteries will always wear out, municipal facilities are not restricted by things like space constraints or residential safety concerns. This means they can implement battery degradation mitigation techniques that are impractical (or feasibly impossible) to be implemented on a residential scale, like distributed cell charge/discharge limits (which at their most effective handicap residential units by up to 20% of their rated capacity but greatly increase the lifetime) or direct cell cooling (which benefits spectacularly from economies of scale - active cooling on small packs is a huge drain for little return, but large scale battery installs can even use geothermal cooling to additionally increase their efficiency). Neither removes the fact that cells do wear out, but it greatly reduces the rate at which they do, and at a significant energy and space savings over alternative techniques. (You'll note that these are many of the same reasons that municipal standby generators are more efficient than large numbers of residential standby generators!)
(this bit is mostly responding to your personal attacks, I will admit that:)
Yes, but I am talking about current battery technology. You're rebutting comments I made criticizing current technology with projections and speculation about future technology, which just isn't fair. I could (hyperbolically, I admit) do the same thing by speculating that giant lithium eating termites will be developed by some rogue nation state in the near future, and that having a power wall risks them being attracted to your home and consuming your family in a gore splattered orgy of B-movie tropes.
A similar thing here. You're also assuming that the future will improve things, which while it's laudable you're still able to be optimistic (no I mean that, I'm a depressed pos) it's also very biased to assume that things will improve as time goes on.
And again, but with the additional add-in that I repeatedly say that municipal installs are better than home installs, not that batteries as power storage solutions are inherently bad. Just that the technology for home use, right now, is.
I could go on but I think I've addressed the major points of miscommunication, if you're interested I would be genuinely happy to keep talking about this in a slightly less aggressive conversation.
(Edit: sorry, thought I should elaborate on this one tiny point:)
(this is a very self indulgent pun)
Do you track interlock failures? Seems like the issues you describe aren't with the interlocks themselves, but perhaps with installation or the breakers they interlock. Some inspectors don't even pass them on new home construction or renovation because some interlocks are attached to the front panel of a home's main panelboard, which could present a safety hazard to the homeowner.
All this is to say that these issues don't substantiate any failures with backup batteries or generators directly, but instead with interconnection equipment.
To be safe though, people should use interlock kits designed by the same manufacturer as their panel to avoid any compatibility/warranty issues, and maybe install interlock kits directly on the breakers themselves.
An even safer measure would be to install transfer switches between the main panel and the utility/backup battery/generator inlet. You may cite this as needing professional installation, but in reality any electrical work done to a home should be conducted by professional and qualified personnel. There are indeed advantages of transfer switches, whether automatic, non-automatic, or manual, over interlock kits.
Expectedly energized lines are sometimes not something an average user understands either! Point being: have professionals do the work.
If we're talking residential installations of interlocks or transfer switches alongside backup batteries or generators, I believe you should be referring to wiremen (in-building & often premises scope) not linemen (out-building & often utility scope).
Even so, where are you gathering your data about safety incidents that have a root cause with interlocks? Can you show me the OSHA statistics?
Interlocks prevent this, as do transfer switches. The only case this would happen is if a homeowner removed their interlock, never had one installed, or plugged their battery/generator into a different circuit not controlled by the interlock/transfer switch. I would think that my previous comments about having profession, qualified personnel make changes to a home's electrical system, even adding a generator, would solve most if not all of this.
Are you suggesting homeowners do unqualified, potentially life threatening work to their homes?
That's a wide claim. The US Census Bureau identified 38,736 local general governments (county, municipal, township) in their 2022 Census of Governments.
Can you say for sure that every one of those requires interlocks specifically?
May I remind you that AHJs can choose to adopt or amend any part of the NEC for their jurisdiction, and may refuse to accept interlock kits as compliant installation.
Which box? There are many boxes in an electric installation. Can I just choose any box? Can it be my TV set box, or my junction box downstream my sub panel, or my main service disconnect box?
The main failure with interconnecting generators with the grid is desynchronization. This can be fixed with relays, but you won't find these in residential installations. Again, the way to prevent this is with proper use of interlock kits or transfer switches installed and used according to qualified professionals.
Where is this hallucination coming from?
Most people installing home backup batteries either have garages where they can put them, or space around their homes to do the same.
Are you implying that all people stuff and cram their living spaces and properties so that there is no excess room for batteries that maybe take up 4'x10' at most? The same goes for generators.
Residential dwellings are built according to the National Electrical Code, which many municipalities adopt or amend.
What safety concerns are there in residential applications that there aren't in municipal applications that the NEC doesn't address? Should you maybe refer these concerns to the NFPA themselves rather than alluding to them online? Do you not want people to be safe?
What are you talking about?
Here's four examples:
Not if your Battery Management System (BMS) has active balancing instead of passive.
Active air cooling is currently the most economical cooling method for battery storage.
Can you point out one resi, C&I, or utility scale BESS installation that uses geothermal cooling? Most use forced air or liquid cooling thermal management systems.
Like what
Ok, irrelevant given that we're talking about improving home resilience through the use of home microgrids - not municipal or utility backup systems.
And it isn't fair that you aren't recognizing progress, instead fear mongering about how nothing is being done and we're all doomed.
Except I wasn't hyperbolizing. I presented scientific research, not some back hand imagination from someone clearly not part of either the industry or research fields.
No, the future itself won't improve things. Humans in the present, doing research, making policy, sharing their success stories about their own home backup microgrid solutions with their friends, family, and neighbors will do this.
Your pessimistic worldview is the antithesis to progress. You have to have the belief that things will get better, to have hope, if you want to make an inch of progress in that direction, or to push back on proponents that wish to destroy that progress.
Things are improving by the way, but I think the global economic order under capitalism is to blame for why things are still worsening overall. If we want to improve human well-being, rewild the planet, reduce pollution, reverse climate change, and allow increase our population, maybe we should consider other economic organizations.
Why do you say that? Are you implying the same electricians that do residential and municipal installs are lazier with the former? Sounds like this could be grounds for litigation. Do you have any complaints that you could make with your state's or municipality's licensing boards where they could launch investigations and revoke electricians'/contractors' licenses?
Glad that we've settled that.
I've shown above that batteries are fine, and that issues may come down to installer error or faulty interconnection equipment, not the batteries themselves. Although I still recognize that batteries can fail. I don't think we have good enough evidence to say what the primary failures and failure rates are. Maybe you can start tracking that!
If you call fallacies and misconceptions miscommunication, then that's not my problem.
No :)