Considering Home Energy Storage

We recently purchased a tear-down with the goal of building a new passive house on the lot. Naturally, there will be will be a massive solar array on the house, and probably on the detached garage as well. Picking a panel fairly easy because the differences in PV (photovoltaic) products seems to mostly come down to warranty period. Energy storage […]

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NACS Takes A Step Closer To De Facto Standard

Despite the use of “standard” in the name of the North America Charging Standard (NACS), aka Tesla plug; NACS isn’t actually a standard. There are procedures around how standards get made, and Tesla didn’t do that. That’s not always important, Apple’s Lightning Connector isn’t a standard either, and it does just fine – well, until recently. What really matters is […]

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UL Certification is a Band-Aid®

Safety certification in the US is more complicated than it should be. A big part of this is that Underwriters Laboratory (UL) plays a dual role in the ecosystem. I recently got in an extended discussion with a UL Supremacist around this, after I said something was UL Certified when that wasn’t technically true, because UL is a Band-Aid®, and […]

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California May Mandate Bidirectional EVSE

While I wouldn’t want to rely on a bidirectional EVSE as a complete home backup, it is a great solution for load shifting, and would be an excellent supplemental option when combined with a small permanent battery installation for home backup. As is the case with many of these things, California seems to be driving progress here, with the potential […]

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