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It's funny seeing people still use rings- thats a UK hangover from after ww2 when copper was scarce and expensive, and is pretty much unknown anywhere elsewhere- here in Australia is always been 'spurs' exclusively... (personally I think rings are a really bad idea- a broken ring can be a source...

Correct- it should have been anti-islanding (indeed even hybrids capable of running in island mode are stiill required to have antiislanding capabilities on their grid facing side- ie if they are running in their hybrid mode- the power produced MUST NOT- under any circumstances- feed back to...

In my case, the mains (in the form of a rural SWER system- doubt they even have them in the UK) runs right in front of my property- but the cost of installing a transformer and poles back 1/2km back to where the shed is (and house will be eventually) was going to cost $42k Australian and is...

You would be surprised lol I have been in the offgrid solar game for forty years (now semi retired ) and doing solar gridtie since 2004 (although its been around almost a decade prior to that in Australia) our current mppt inverters are running up to 95%, with most (even the cheapest) running...

All gridtie inverters are legally required to have islanding- not having it is a 'bad' idea- killing a linesman type bad... :-( The 'solar only' hybrid ones are fairly common in cyclonic areas- simply because they give you a small amount of power if the grid is down for extended periods (a...

Australia is one of the more advanced countries re solar in many ways... I got my gridtie licence back in 2004, and I have been doing offgrid installs since the early 1980's... The UK is probably 10-15 years behind us in many ways, the Eu has some equal to us- to 50 years behind, and the US is...

Re solar not working when the grid is down- there are inverters that can run while the power is off- these are called 'hybrids' and they do cost more than simple gridtie inverters... Depending on how much you want to spend, the cheapest hybrids (cost about twice as much as a standard gridtie...

Correct- (which leaves me to wonder about property boundaries legally- are they the surface features (old way) or the gps coordinates (new way) and what happens when things like this happen???? Eventually, someone, somewhere is going to be losing land lol... But in this case, it was a rather...

I think you aren't quite getting how it was... the road was in front of both (well all the properties)- the phone line (master cable 100 pairs or more) was supposed to (and would have been originally) run along the verge of the road as was always done and is what the plans showed (between the...

In Australia, its always got a bond between the neutral and the earth at the fusebox, and an earth stake connected to the earth bonding bar- its not up to the council lol That's because we use the 'MEN' standard (Multiple Earth Neutral) system here- only the very oldest places didn't have it-...

Well the plans showed it as being roadside- but it most certainly wasn't... (the original building where i was working (originally a workshop, then converted to admin as the workshop had become too small) the path, and the 'new workshop' were decades apart in construction dates and were all...

This is country Australia- no ducts used, just direct buried cables It was 'relatively flat' but with a very slight slope up to a rock ridge behind, but the movement on the surface was noticeable enough that you could see the gaps opening and closing over the years I worked there- sometimes the...

My old boss (this was a few decades ago) hit a phone cable and took out the entire roads phones- he'd even phoned 'dial-a-dig' (shows how long ago it was) He was digging about 20m away from where it was supposed to be (running down the front of the property) to build a new shed Turned out...

Most of the big draglines here in Australia are purely electric surprisingly- they use massive 'mains' cables running to the machine and fed from the mains grid... Trucks and some smaller (lol- small being a relative term) kit use diesel Cats for the most part although that was changing when I...

I used to have (sold it to mate still in the mining industry) a full set of spanners made of that- I worked on the metering systems in several anfo factories (they make the stuff onsite in most mines), and they were religious about anything that could possibly cause sparks- you had to put...

We aren't allowed 'septics' either anymore (at least for new installs- only grandfathered in old ones still allowed)- but the full treatment domestic sewage plant (which is what I was talking about) is still called a septic here Saying the full name every time would be a mouthful in conversation...

Actually, thats what I am using here- mostly due to the costs involved in a modern septic- with my soil conditions, I would need a septic system that uses around 2kwh a day in electricity (I am offgrid solar) plus a 100m of trench (which would require clearing as much bush again a I did for the...

I live offgrid, and the most commonly used cooking devices are electric kettle (until I have my first coffee of the day- I should have a 'do not approach' sign on me lol) then the air frier, then the microwave... Like many offgriders- I tossed the 'upright fridge' and went a top loader freezer...

Another factor for many here in Australia, is that most dust is carried within a metre or so of the ground, so ground based panels tend to get dirty faster- my own here (temporary ground based) require cleaning about once a month or so, where rooftop ones like I had at the old place we went four...

Actually, having experience with both 'solar farms' and residential rooftop in Australia, the solar farms (at least here) struggle against residential rooftop- they need large areas of land (not an issue here) BUT the places where large areas are cheap- isn't where the people are- and also...