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0 pointsghusto5mo ago0 comments

Out of interest, what would happen if you were to sell/give it to your neighbours anyway? Is it a slap on the wrist, or are we talking of multi-thousand pound fines?

I ask because whilst I believe there are no doubt (probably very strict) regulations around the selling of electricity, I wonder how enforceable they are on the average Joe. If I were to run a cable to my neighbour and just deny I was sharing my electrical store, how far would they go, and who would _they_ even be?

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manarth5mo ago

10% of turnover (Electricity Act 1989).

Realistically, no-one's going to care about running a cable to your neighbour. If you start running cables to multiple neighbours, or connecting the cable directly into the mains supply of the other properties, you may attract attention.

Mostly for the potential of microgrids to upset the delicate balance of power-delivery and frequency-stability of the wider grid. There are a few initiatives around peer-to-peer power sharing and microgrids, but nothing particularly mainstream in the UK yet.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/29/section/4

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/29/section/27O

jacquesm5mo ago

> or connecting the cable directly into the mains supply of the other properties, you may attract attention.

That would be a stupendously bad idea.

p_l5mo ago

Well, unless you invest non-trivial extra work, you're going to start showing up on grid monitoring and finally someone will drill down in problem looking for broken substation and find you doing exactly the things that caused the problems and the reason for it being illegal to "just hook up".

It's just that often in many places law lagged in ways of dealing with islanded operation, and semi-islanded cases (where you invest in serious gear to separate your local micro grid from external grid preventing the issues that cause technicians to show up and report you)

jacquesm5mo ago

A disconnect isn't a huge deal, most houses have one but they don't have a lock-out position and that's a must for an islanding operation and you'll need inverters that are happy to produce power even when the grid isn't present. Those are not the norm, but you can buy them (I'd recommend Victron). You'll also need a fairly large battery to stabilize the whole thing, without a battery you'll see massive voltage fluctuations as the inverters try to adapt to load without the required low internal resistance backing, so I would definitely recommend against that unless you like buying new stuff every other week.

jacquesm5mo ago

Hypothetically for obvious reasons, I would put a socket on the outer wall of my garage with a sign saying 'do not use'. This would enable an enterprising person to siphon off up to 3600 Watts continuously while the breaker in my garage would be in the 'on' position. I could use my home automation setup to determine whether there is a surplus generated and only enable that socket through remote control as well.

PeterStuer5mo ago

Direct neighbour as in your properties touching might be a different matter, but to get right of way to cross public or another entities property as a random person or company, that will most certainly be problematic.

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manarth5mo ago

10% of turnover (Electricity Act 1989).

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/29/section/4

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/29/section/27O

jacquesm5mo ago

> or connecting the cable directly into the mains supply of the other properties, you may attract attention.

That would be a stupendously bad idea.

p_l5mo ago

jacquesm5mo ago

PeterStuer5mo ago

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