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Comment by coleashman | Hacker News Reader

1. I'm actually hopeful we see a generic MID standard emerge with folks like ConnectDER well positioned to support that, so more homes can benefit and households can gain the ability to flexibly try different batteries without ripping out their panels every time. If not, we could definitely build our own (helped build 2 generations of Tesla's MID as well as 3 generations of SPAN Panels with MID functionality). Happy to nerd out on the topic anytime :)

2. Feedback taken hah

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Huh, I hadn’t seen ConnectDER before. That’s cute. It’s not entirely clear to me how it interacts with power sources in the house, and it’s also not clear to me whether it’s standardized enough so that a different MID could be used in its place with the same inverters/batteries/whatever. I would love to see the industry standardize on a MID protocol well enough for applications like V2H/V2G to work without absurd levels of vendor lock-in.

I suppose another potential issue would be exceeding the capacity of a panel bus. Balcony solar has the same problem, and I guess no one os likely to connect enough balcony solar units to cause a real problem.

I agree we need a universal option for both home batteries & V2H. ConnectDER is working to be that standard. Tesla’s Backup Switch was supposed to be open, but unfortunately hasn’t been opened for others to integrate with.

Whatever design wins should also be available as a standalone device (maybe even something that can be installed inside an existing enclosure if there’s room and maybe even in a circuit breaker format) and not just a meter ring adapter. There are users who, for various reasons, cannot use meter ring adapters as switches. For example:

- Some services cannot be switched at the meter ring. This includes services that use a current transformer separate from the meter. (As far as I know, this includes all services over “Class 320”.)

- Some apartments aren’t separately metered. Fortunately, this is rare.

- Some users will want to back up only part of a service.

I've seen this "meter plug piggy back vampire tap" scheme used for EV chargers, looks cool to use it for grid tie generators too.

Tesla offers the Backup Switch which is a Meter Socket Adapter(MSA) like ConnectDER.

MID = Microgrid Interconnect Device ?

DER = Distributed Energy Resource ?

SPAN = an energy device company https://www.span.io/ ?

Just had to check the definition of some acronyms and thought others might find the results helpful inline.

Correct, Thanks!

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