“Easy-to-install solar panels that plug into a regular outlet are getting attention just as Americans are worried about rising energy costs. That’s because these plug-in or balcony solar panels start shaving off part of a homeowner’s or renter’s utility bill right away.
“”A year ago, nobody was talking about this,” says Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver, a California nonprofit group that advocates for plug-in solar. The panels are already popular in Germany, where more than 1.2 million of the small plug-in systems are registered with the German government.”
It’s not “just” a solar panel, to be legally compliant in Germany. The part you plug in is basically a control unit. They aren’t super big and complex, but they need to be able to do 2 things:
Detect if there’s a live circuit, and not transmit any power if not. This is because sometimes electricity is turned off for maintenance. You don’t want an electrician dying because a line they turned off is actually live due to someone having this plugged in.
Power limiter, similar in function to a circuit breaker. This prevents overcurrents happening in your walls and starting a fire. Because all of this is happening after a house’s breaker box, they won’t flip if the combined grid + solar current is too high, so the solar unit’s control unit has to be able to deal with it.
Disclaimer: I’m a layman, not an electrician. Just read into the tech because it’s interesting to me.
Thanks for the info, these were exactly the questions I had!