Should you use plug in solar panels?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This podcast is supported by GoFundMe.

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

My name is Veronica. We started our fundraiser for Mariah. She was a close friend in my heart, but she was also family. She was my sister-in-law. She unfortunately passed from a car accident, so it wasn't something that we were prepared for. Shortly after we got the news, I was put in charge of helping with the funeral arrangements and everything, and just looking at the overall cost, it didn't feel right for me to ask the family that's grieving for money. That's what made me go to GoFundMe, and it just became a network of people that were willing to come together to help.

SPEAKER_1 (0:36)

GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people.

SPEAKER_2 (0:41)

You really do miss out on the opportunity to help people if you don't ask. When you actually put your heart, your soul into it, and you're like, this is the reason I'm doing it, it helps a lot.

SPEAKER_1 (0:53)

Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com. That's gofundme.com. gofundme.com.

Lisa Ryan (1:00)

The Hard Shoulder with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman.

Ciara Kelly (1:04)

On Newstalk with Kiya.

A government ordered report has approved the introduction of plug-in solar panel technology. But what are plug-in solar panels and what makes them unique and who can use them? Lisa Ryan, Professor of Energy Economics at UCD has joined us now. Good evening to you, Lisa. First of all, tell us about plug-in solar panels. I've never seen them. I've heard of them. For example, how big are they? Like, where might they fit? A garden, a balcony? What are we talking about in terms of size?

Lisa Ryan (1:37)

Well, they're much smaller than rooftop solar panels.

And that's because they're really just usually one or two panels. If you consider like rooftop solar panels, people, the average in Ireland that people put up there is about 10 or 11 panels. And so then obviously you generate a lot more electricity. Plug-in solar panels are very popular in the continent. In Germany, they're really huge. And that's mainly because people live in apartments. And so they've become very popular for people to put on their balconies. So that's the kind of size they are. You can put one or two panels on your balcony. Plug it in. You have to plug it in inside unless you have outside plug. And the other thing is that they're portable. So if you put one on your balcony and then you change apartments, you can just take it with you compared to the ones on your roof, which are a little bit more fixed and will be difficult to remove.

Ciara Kelly (2:24)

I have a south facing back garden. I don't have any solar panels on my roof. Let's say I buy a couple of these things and I plug them in. How do they work, Lisa? Do they just start feeding back into my home grid, as it were, so that I'm using less from the national grid or what's the mechanism?

Lisa Ryan (2:42)

Yeah, I mean, it's the same as with rooftop piles that you plug in and it will feed into your internal circuit.

Ciara Kelly (2:50)

That's what I meant by home grid, by the way. The proper term obviously is internal circuit.

Lisa Ryan (2:55)

Yeah, so it'll go straight into any appliance that you're running at that moment in time. Now, they are quite small in terms of the amount of electricity that they produce. So if they run about 300 to 800 watts, which if you compare that with roof situation, people usually put in 5 kilowatts or 4 to 5 kilowatts, which is 45,000 watts. So it's a much smaller. So even if you have 800 watts, you think of a microwave, that will run your microwave, but it won't fully run a kettle, for example, which needs about 2 kilowatts. So they are quite limited, unless you of course buy 10 of these and put them in your garden with 10 plugs, that's starting to get complicated. But you don't get an SEI grant for them.

So they really just attend. Now, my colleague Paul Dean and Cork has calculated that if you have some south facing, it could use your bills by 10 to 15 percent. So it depends really on how you live.

Are you there during the day? Because people don't really attach batteries to them. At the moment, because they haven't been legal, you couldn't get paid for exporting back to the grid, unless you signed off with an electrician, which obviously raises the cost as well.

Ciara Kelly (4:15)

They don't have batteries. Does that mean, right? So I go out to work in the morning and I plug my solar panels in, and I think I'm great and it's feeding into the grid, but my house isn't using any electricity. Then in the evening when there is no sun and I'm starting to turn on my kettle and all, was that all for naught?