Is it possible to use a portable solar device to put electricity into my house via plugs?

I live in an apartment that has a small South facing porch, in Southern California. I’d like to use solar to decrease my monthly electric bill. Without buying a rooftop system (it’s not my roof, it must be portable), what can I get to plug into my existing sockets, to decrease my monthly electricity bill? (I already buy carbon credits and have special plugs to reduce drain from energy vampires).

Hey Socal, it’s always good to hear someone is interested in going solar. In your situation, you don’t have a lot of options, but it is possible to do it. What you need is called a microsine inverter. For several years Trace Engineering built one called the MS100, also referred to as the OK4U inverter. It is very small, can convert up to 100 watts of solar power into household AC and basically dump it right into your homes existing wiring. They stopped making them a few years ago, but I have seen them at resale websites like Ebay and Alt E Store on line. In fact, lots of them are sold already attached to a properly sized panel. They are not cheap, you might spend close to $1000 to get a slightly used set with the inverter already installed on the panel that puts out 100 watts or so.

There is another company called Enphase making them in Europe. They work just like the Trace unit, except they are set up for 240 VAC, like most of Europe is. Some installers are putting them into homes here in the US and have had good luck with them. They have a 15 year warranty, and most of the panels for sale today have warranties that run much longer than that. You can search for Enphase inverters online, or look for a used Trace unit at a resale website.

A couple words of caution. First, if you’ve not had any experience with solar electric panels, or PV, they have to be completely exposed to the sun. If you have a small shaded area, like from a rail on your balcony, the entire panels output is compromised. We learned this the hard way when we converted our home over to solar power years ago. It’s all working fine now. So that panel has to be on the outside of any rails, planters, laundry and so on to work. Secondly, these microsine inverters are designed to tie to the existing grid power, which means they have to have an AC signal to operate. If the power goes out in your building, the panel and inverter will shut down too, so you won’t have backup power from your panel during a power outage.

Another option is to build up a small panel/inverter/battery system like we did years ago. You can start with one small panel, say 50 watts or so, a couple golf cart batteries and a small inverter from the autoparts store. Go to Home Power Magazines website at Homepower.com and use their search engine to look for an article called, “Starting with the small system first.” It was an article that featured the system we originally put into our home 10 years ago. You might have to subscribe to use their search engine.

I suggest doing some research online and shopping around a bit before you make any decisions. You might decide not to get involved at all, and that’s fine, but at least you will be well informed. I’ll include some places to search for more info below. Good luck, and take care, Rudydoo

The California Hot Water Heating and Efficiency Act (AB 1470

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