Pre-built solar homes could make renewable energy almost 50% cheaper

Re:Pre-built solar homes could make renewable energy almost ... by rodgerd on Sunday September 29, 2019 @04:49PM (#21109549)

I use PoE UniFi gear, because running a single Ethernet cable to power e.g. a wifi AP gives me a lot more flexibility in placing it cleanly than having to worry about power; that's for residential use.

Given the degree of fire risk in houses that's associated with 230V/10A wiring and devices, I do wonder how much safer it would be to have fewer AC/DC transformers scattered around the house with DC wiring.

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Re:Pre-built solar homes could make renewable energy almost ... by maxdamantus on Sunday September 29, 2019 @08:10PM (#21110566)

If you're using DC to transmit the same amount of power, you'll probably be using similar voltages (otherwise you're going to need thicker cables). I suspect DC is probably a greater fire risk in this case due to arcing. An arc is less likely to persist on AC since the potential keeps passing through 0 V (hence DC switches are designed to have a bigger air gap).

If it's just a matter of providing alternative circuitry for low-power devices, presumably you can already improve safety by just using lower-current circuit breakers.

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Re:Pre-built solar homes could make renewable energy almost ... by rodgerd on Sunday September 29, 2019 @10:27PM (#21111262)

> If you're using DC to transmit the same amount of power, you'll probably be using similar voltages (otherwise you're going to need thicker cables).

A good point - I guess I'm mostly thinking about the volume of things in the house that don't really need access to even a fraction of the 2.4kW available; having moved from incandescent bulbs to LEDs, I've got a bunch of unnecessary power supply and per-bulb transformers, for example.

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