This week’s call by the Australian Energy Market Operator for “emergency backstop” mechanisms to switch off rooftop solar systems brings safety risks, because the high voltages needed exceed the limits that many appliances have safely been tested for.
That’s according to Vince Garrone, former power quality manager at Energex, Queensland’s biggest electricity distributor who called the situation ironic. Authorities, in using “brute force” to trip inverters, were creating the very high voltage conditions the device protection was designed to prevent.
