Commercial Plug And Play Solar Panels

Plug and play solar is happening. The CNET News article: Thinking about solar? It's easier to start small by Martin LaMonica, gives a good state of the art snapshot of companies enabling plug and play solar.

CNET News also has a good set of images of the products mentioned in his article: Piecemeal solar panels (photos).

The CNET News article on the GreenRay Solar product AC solar panels: One step closer to DIY solar? by Martin LaMonica indicates it is designed for a home user to just plug it into the grid. The GreenRay Solar FAQs mention that the requirement for an A/C disconnect for each GreenRay branch-circuit varies by Authority Having Jurisdiction and they advise a check with the local installer.

Westinghouse Solar (was Andalay Solar) has a plug-and-play solar kit available at some Lowe's home-improvement stories in California. It is a panel, equipped with a microinverter from Enphase Energy, and a simplified wiring and racking system.

Ready Solar has a plug and play system named Solar in a Box.

The Solar Clover by Armageddon Energy will be hexagonal shaped panels which might make it easier to install on home roofs with protrusions and all the various odd roof angles. They expect their product to be available end of 2010.

Clarian Power expects their plug and play Sunfish to be available in 2011.

Martin LaMonica of CNET News appears to be closely following this market sector. The CNET News Green Tech RSS Feed appears to be a great source for plug and play solar power news.

Office Action Summary Received

Submitting to the USPTO Green Technology Pilot Program has been worthwhile. The USPTO issued an Office Action Summary on June 9, 2010. An Office Action Summary is the name for the document where the patent examiner replies to the patent with their comments.

In my experience this is an amazingly quick response to a new patent submittal. The first response from the patent examiner is almost always

this is not patentable because ...

and it is then our job to explain why it is patentable or to refine the claims to something that is patentable.

After plowing through all the patent examiner comments, I am looking forward to explaining to my patent attorney why I think the prior art sited by the patent examiner does not apply to this invention.

Update 2010-09-20: Scientific American (July 2010) reported on the Green Technology program in the article Patent Still Pending. They report that 335 patents qualified to jump to the head of the line. Compared to previous patents I've gotten, this one is proceeding amazingly fast through the process.

kWikSolar "the world's first plug-n-play solar appliance"

kWikSolar was at the SF Maker Faire displaying their product, a 200 watt solar panel that you can plug into the wall without permits. Referred to as the world's first plug-n-play solar appliance, they indicated that our local power company, PG&E, allows consumers to plug in power sources that have the appropriate safety features as long as the total power supplied is under 1 kW. This is good. kWikSolar makes it more likely that 3ub technology will become products.

Functional Proof of Concept Prototype

Am in the process of building a functional prototype of the majority of the 3ub system. The idea is to be able to carry the demonstration system to some location, plug it into the wall, and demonstrate how it works by actually having it perform all the functions. There are essentially two modules, the safety module that would be installed by an electrician and the generator module that would be part of the power generator purchased by a consumer.

The initial system will not actually feed power back into the grid. That will be simulated. I will need to work with a micro-inverter company to add that functionality to the demonstration sometime in the future. All the communications via the power line, plus all the sensing and controls will be fully functional. The demonstration systems each have an LCD to display their status. All the components of both systems will be visible.

As a technical note, the demonstration systems are built using Arduino micro-computers, relay and power sensors, and homeplug powerline modems. The demonstration systems are physically much bigger than they could be in their final form. This is just a demonstration system. For example, the 1 amp power draw used to have the generator confirm it is downstream of the upstream safety module uses a 100 watt hanging shop light instead of small resistor. Makes for a better demo.

USPTO Green Technology Pilot Program

The patent application was accepted into the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Green Technology Pilot Program. This means that the patent application will effectively jump to the head of the line and be reviewed by a patent examiner in the very near future.

Future Cost of Solar Panels

Robert X. Cringely has an online column at PBS.  He frequently covers internet related technology, nerd topics. Although the title doesn't mention solar cell costs, "Azure Blues: Microsoft and the electric power industry have a lot in common" has some interesting observations about the future cost of solar cells. He presents a case for why solar cell costs should essentially follow Moore's Law, halving every 18 months.

Solar Power Conference in San Diego CA

The Solar Power Conference had a large number of people that I needed to talk to. Although 3ub is not just for solar panels, most of the home grid connection activity is happening in the solar panel industries. Net metering systems were the typical booth display example. In net metering there are no batteries, excess power flows into the grid.

Solar panel DC power is converted to AC through an inverter. An inverter that connects to the power grid is a grid tie inverter. Most inverters are designed to handle many solar panels. The inverters designed for a single solar panel are referred to as micro-inverters. The two micro-inverters I found have a list price below $200. That technology exists.

Everyone I talked with (solar panel manufacturers, inverter manufacturers, and electrical utility companies) indicated that the major hurdle for 3ub is regulatory, not technical. Quite a few people pointed me to their person they think has the most insight into the regulatory issues. I've got lots of phone calls to make. 

One example of a regulatory hurdle is the requirement that standard home grid tie systems must have all sorts of safety hardware mounted on the outside of the home to allow firemen and utility line workers a way to positively disconnect the home power supply from the grid. In today's world, embedded computers can perform that safety function. The Netherlands has legislative embedded computer protection devices and as such, they allow home owners to plug in properly protected power sources without the externally mounted "big off switch".

Welcome to Power To Plug-In

My goal is to make adding a home power generator (solar panels, hybrid car, etc) as simple as plugging in an appliance, and with just about as many permits, none. It's my belief that by doing this I can help bring energy independence to the USA. Eventually this could be a global solution, but for now, I'm starting locally.

The technology to do this is described at www.3ub.com. Technology is easy, it's fitting the technology into the regulatory rules that is difficult. That's where you fit in.

I will chronicle this journey with lessons learned but more importantly, with requests for the knowledge I seek. Hopefully one of you is going to know who I should contact to make things happen.

For now 3ub is just me paying for all of this out of pocket. But, I've bootstrapped before, I'm determined, and I've got many years to pursue this. Help me pursue this goal.