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Balcony solar is taking off
- PyWoody 2y agoThese seem like no-brainers for shade with solar generation compared to a traditional awning.
- the_mitsuhiko 2y ago> there must be something in it Subsidies.
- m463 2y agodoesn't seem like subsidies so much as no regulatory roadblocks. probably just buy up to 800w of panels, plug them into an outlet, and you're allowed.
- Asmod4n 2y agoNope, zero subsidies.
- sva_ 2y agoThere's an indirect subsidy via tax
- the_mitsuhiko 2y agoThat is just incorrect. There are / were a ton of subsidies: https://www.finanztip.de/photovoltaik/balkon-solaranlage/foerderung/ https://www.finanztip.de/photovoltaik/balkon-solaranlage/foe...
- x3n0n 2y agoYes, for home customers, they are VAT-free.
- marcusverus 2y agoI've heard so many lies in support of "cheap solar" that I've lost count. Environmentalists may be the least honest political cohort in existence, which is saying something.
- Asmod4n 2y agototal solar capacity got increased by 75% in the last 3 years in germany alone. and yeah, i forgot about the free vax we got for small installments last year.
- Aiguru31415666 2y agoI have it on my balcony. Took me a few hours to research and a helping hand to get it installed. It will pay for itself in 4 years. No subsidies. And my balcony has a tree shadow at lunch. It's just easy to do (plug it into the socket) and done. 400 watt module. Today I made only 400 watt. Not a lot. It's still enough. The energy price per kWh is just relatively high. 30-40cent
- deepsummer 2y agoYour utility company subsidizes you. In the usual contract, you pay an price of 40 cent per kWh, no matter when you use it. But that price is based on a year-round average. Actually, sometimes electricity is super cheap for the utility company, like when the sun is shining in summer and electricity prices go negative. And sometimes it is very expensive, like on dark winter days without sun and wind, when prices are >1 EUR/kWh. What you can do with balcony solar is skip the cheap summer sun prices (which cost the utility nothing, but they still charge you 40ct), and you still buy at expensive times for 40ct, when it's actually worth much more.
- stephen_g 2y agoThat's not a subsidy, that's more like a time-based arbitrage.
- pjc50 2y agoI don't think this is based on a real analysis of German electricity wholesale prices.
- Ekaros 2y agoIn short term I think it is workable strategy. But in long term I expect the pricing to move more towards market price direction. Either by purely market or some strange adjustments based on consumption timing. And ofc transfer will go up...
- shafyy 2y agoI don't think most people buy balcony solar in Germany to save money. The eletricity you generate is very little, and it takes years before you even break even, and then you maybe save a couple of dozen euros a year. No, I think it's more about the feeling of independence and sustainability.
- otherme123 2y agoA 500W kit costs around 500€. With good orientation you break even in 3.5 years (2kWh per day at 20c the kWh). Very few investments would give you such 25-30% yearly ROI.
- Asmod4n 2y agoafter around 5-7 years you break even, and solar panels can last for 2-4 decades. Most panels you can buy in germany have a warranty of around 25 years. So yeah, you buy them to save money since electricity is hugely expensive in germany.
- rsynnott 2y agoNah, solar panels have just gotten really cheap.
- Asmod4n 2y agosubsidies don't make products cheaper for the consumer, most of it lands in the pockets of companies.
- INTPenis 2y agoI'd have it too if it wasn't for these tall buildings around me.
- Asmod4n 2y agoThey are so popular in Germany, you can sometimes even buy them in supermarkets.
- walthamstow 2y agoI assume Germany has 'the middle aisle' in Lidl and Aldi like we do in the UK? Solar panels are exactly the kind of thing I would expect to find there :D
- Asmod4n 2y agoyup, exactly there :)
- 6510 2y agoI'm always amused comparing the hot and sunny German way with the cold rainy cloudy Australian vision. https://www.news.com.au/national/australias-nuclear-future-bold-plan-explained/video/182a582060c4deebf1a36bb56fbf4d3a https://www.news.com.au/national/australias-nuclear-future-b...
- Aiguru31415666 2y ago[dead]
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoAustralia is increasingly conservative when it comes to politics. We've had it too good for too long and so have lost the pioneering spirit. Solar panels on homes are so popular that energy providers struggle to deal with the output during sunny days, whilst on the other hand solar and wind energy generation plants are looked at with suspicion and are politically unpopular. Just look at the political reaction to the installation of the "biggest battery in the southern hemisphere" at the time. You'd expect politics to jump on it as advertising how progressive and advanced the country is. Nope, the prime Minister at the time mocked it (the same party proposing nine nuclear reactors): https://www.9news.com.au/national/sa-s-big-battery-just-another-big-thing/feaca6c5-9ff4-40cb-8bc6-fb71f1f5e76d https://www.9news.com.au/national/sa-s-big-battery-just-anot...
- roenxi 2y agoEveryone agrees the Australian energy mix will involve lots of solar power. The coalition's policy [0] is keeping all the options open - just insistent that nuclear should be in the mix. And lifting the major legal impediments to developing nuclear power is just common sense, our policy on that has been insane for decades. Although I don't want to be seen as defending the their overall plan. The part where they want the government to own a nuclear reactor is raw madness and it is hard to see how it'll come together as anything but an expensive disaster. Especially if the Labor party offers any resistance of any kind. [0] https://www.australianeedsnuclear.org.au/our-plan https://www.australianeedsnuclear.org.au/our-plan
- stephen_g 2y agoThe idea of nuclear in Australia is mostly just a con to keep coal going longer by the conservative side of politics. They are not currently in power and even if they do get elected this year market forces will basically scupper the plan in the medium term anyway. It's 100% about their connections to the resources (coal) and oil & gas political donors, nothing to do with actual policy. At worst a few billions will go to politically connected people to keep some coal plants running a few more years, but I doubt any nuclear plants will actually pass any kind of business case because they will cost too much and take too long to build (we would have needed to start 25 years ago for them to be economically viable, so they could have replaced the coal plants while the renewables were being built out).
- dkjaudyeqooe 2y agoFull solar cladding, at least on some sides, would be interesting, but I guess panel costs aren't quite there yet.
- blacksmith_tb 2y agoPeople are already building fences out of PV[1]. At least in the US, my instinct would be that building codes might not consider them to be adequate as siding, however. 1: https://justwe-gpi.com/solar-power/solar-panel-fence/ https://justwe-gpi.com/solar-power/solar-panel-fence/
- dkjaudyeqooe 2y agoMaybe a simple cladding designed to attach the solar panel? The costs start adding up quickly though.
- eldaisfish 2y agoalready a thing. here's one example from Canada https://natural-resources.canada.ca/funding-partnerships/west-5-smart-grid-project https://natural-resources.canada.ca/funding-partnerships/wes...
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoAnyone doing this in America?
- uxp100 2y agoTo do exactly what they’re doing in Germany would be illegal, or perhaps merely would make your utility very mad. It’s something like an 800w inverter that plugs into a wall socket. One issue for the US is that you don’t have access to both hots on one plug in a typical receptacle. Not a dealbreaker but one of many reasons you shouldn't import a German one and try and modify it for US use.
- rndmize 2y agoAbout six months ago I bought an Anker set - a portable battery pack and some folding panels. A buddy of mine got basically the same thing, but Ecoflow. He lives in a condo, has a balcony, and can hang his panels there to charge the pack; my options are a little more constrained (3 story house with a couple hundred sq ft concrete "yard", with light blocked most hours of the day by the next house.) I haven't gotten much use out of my set, but his plan was to run his desktop off it, which sounded very doable. All in all probably not quite the same as Germany (I guess their kits don't need a battery or plug into the wall or something).
- incompatible 2y agoThe idea of large numbers of big lithium battery packs constantly charging or discharging in apartment buildings is a bit scary to me. Perhaps if they are contained in a fire-proof housing?
- _ea1k 2y agoThe good thing is that many of these are lifepo4, which largely mitigates the risk.
- jandrese 2y agoNot the part where they plug the panels into a wall outlet. In the US getting the permits for grid tie is a huge expense and hassle so it would make no sense to do it for just a couple of panels. You need permission not only from the local government, but the power company, and possibly an HOA. If you did this you would buy some Bluetti or similar power bank to charge off of the panels and use that power to run lights or maybe a mini-split heat pump so you can launder your energy savings through not having to run your home's grid-tie heat pump as much.
- guyzero 2y agoIs this grid tied? Are people tying these to batteries and then running their appliances off of them? Seems like too little power to properly backfeed the grid.
- nikeee 2y agoYou basically plug them into your power outlet and feed back into the system, reducing your electricity bill.
- Aiguru31415666 2y ago1.5 Million 400 watt modules ist Not nothing. Yes they are grid tied.
- a1o 2y agoIs it 600 MWatt equivalent? It's curious how the grid adapts at the end of the day
- Aiguru31415666 2y agoCurrently through a lot of dispatch orders. Basically shutting off some PV parks or wind farms and paying them money. The market reacts now by installing a lot more energy storage (battery parks) to make a profit from that which will lead to a lot less dispatch. In Germany this year we have a record number of energy storage projects happening.
- zo1 2y agoIf it's a hybrid inverter, it just offsets what you pull from the grid. And btw, as long as you have the right voltage and grid-frequency, you can practically push as little as you want. The details and roadblocks usually come in the form of regulation, contracts, meter features, and the utilities trying to stonewall any sort of slow phase-out of people's dependence on them.
- Gigachad 2y ago>With solar balconies, no such consent is required unless the facade is listed as of historic interest or there is a specific prohibition from the residents’ association or the local authority. In Australia, there is no chance you'd get away with this since basically every strata bylaw document bans non typical balcony furnature and its a struggle to just get those fake plant wall coverings or even hanging your clothes out to dry.
- nielsole 2y agoWhile that stance is about Spain, in Germany only a recent law change brought about by a petition has given balcony solar privileged status, making it harder for landlords to forbid them. Change is possible.
- Gigachad 2y agoApartments in Australia work seemingly different to the rest of the world where there is almost never a central landlord that owns the whole building, but every apartment has an individual owner and the rules are voted on by the owners. Sometimes the state government steps in to make certain rules invalid such as banning pets. But an attempt to let people dry their clothes on the balcony recently failed. And I can see almost zero chance of allowing solar panels since they do have a significant aesthetic impact on the building along with safety concerns around panels getting ripped off in the wind. Most buildings already have solar on the roof but it mostly just powered the lifts and hallway lights.
- _carbyau_ 2y agoI spent years renting/owning apartments. Now fortunate to own a mortgage/house. The amount of freedom open to you is ridiculous. It is like becoming a "first class" citizen - a "homeowner" that the politicians pander to. It is ridiculous. To deal with apartment living is to deal with bureaucracy/politics/bullshit. And even when the people are lovely - like my last apartment building - the incentives don't align to make for sensible long term decisions for the whole building. Solar panels with or without battery? Electric car charging? Bike shed? Heatpump-everything? Upgrade building insulation? Arrange the garden to be useful? These are now options available to me on the basis of money alone - no permission from others required. It is stupid. I know that apartment living can be more efficient per capita in so many ways, better for city planning and public transport etc etc. But fuck that. A lot has to change until apartments become desirable as anything than a temporary stayover.
- exabrial 2y agoIn the USA, given that the vast majority of apartments don't have to pay energy bills, this means they don't have an economic incentive to upgrade appliances, provide adequate insulation during construction, or maintain air seals. My old apartment, constructed in 2002, had dual pane glass, but it had LONG lost its air seals (very cheap 15 year warranty windows). There is zero chance the apartment was going to upgrade the 4000 windows in their complex. This loophole is a major source of energy waste, and there's not a great way around it unless apartments are forced to bundle bulk energy costs with rent, which has other undesirable side effects.
- lizknope 2y agoI've rented 3 different apartments in the US. I always had to pay electricity myself. The water was included as part of the rent.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago"Vast majority of apartments" seems to be referring to the building/complex owner, not individual renters. In other words, you pay the energy bill but you don't have a say in which efficiency upgrades are implemented.
- digdugdirk 2y agoThat's what the previous comment is saying - the tenant is responsible for the electricity cost, but has no ability to make capital improvements/investments to increase efficiency. Meanwhile, the apartment owner has no incentive to make those same investments, because they aren't on the hook for the monthly energy costs. It's a mismatched set of incentives that results in cheaper, low efficiency apartment buildings and higher energy usage across the country.
- panick21_ 2y agoIn theory people should consider electricity cost when selecting where they live. Maybe there is an issue with getting that information. But I think this is the same with all renting, not just apartments.
- gorbypark 2y agoI’ve been looking into doing this on my balcony in Spain. They sell “plug in” solar kits, but I’ve yet to determine if it’s actually legal here. I have a south facing balcony that’s about 1mx3m, so should be able to get about 400-600 watts of panels on the railing. I actually came across this article in my research and it’s the only thing I’ve found saying it’s legal if it’s under 800w. From what I’m gather it’s just a few solar panels and an inverter that feeds electricity into a socket, more or less. My concern is what happens when there’s a power outage? I’d then be feeding power into a system that’s “denergized”. I know with real solar setups there’s an automatic cutoff when that happens to protect people working on the lines…all the kits i see here mention nothing about a cutoff system.
- cameldrv 2y agoMy understanding is that the inverter you get in the kit that you plug into the wall will shut itself off if the power goes out, the same as most larger non off-grid solar systems.
- wongarsu 2y agoNot only as a safety feature but as an inherent part of their design: they are designed to produce AC that's in sync with the grid. Same frequency and peaks/valleys as the same time. In a blackout there is no grid to follow, so the inverter shuts off.
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- tetha 2y agoIt is also interesting to read up how this plays into black start plans for the european power grid. You would think solar parks make black starts ... "easy" - just turn them on and have some power, but due to the inverter functions, that's not the case. Instead, one of the plans I've read about has to start a few black start capable power-plants first to get some kind of phase into the grid. Then you can bring consumers and solar parks online until there is enough load on the grid to bring up larger power plants, while the quick-reacting solar parks are taken online and offline to balance the grid so it never has too much or too little load on it.
- croisillon 2y ago> they are so popular the term Balkonkraftwerk (balcony power plant) has been coined i woud argue that it is not how German works, word coining is not a metric of its popularity
- ahofmann 2y agoNah, any German word with Kraft in it, is a strong sign of it's popularity ;-) Balkonkraftwerk sounds powerful. Not like Aufhängesolarpaneel, or Steckersolargerät.
- red369 2y agoKraftwerk even! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk
- _nalply 2y agoQuite the opposite. Balkonkraftwerk sounds immediately clear and convincing. German Wikipedia has an article about it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkonkraftwerk https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkonkraftwerk
- wongarsu 2y agoIt's like saying that the fact that the word "balcony power plant" exists is a sign of how popular it is in the English speaking world. Except that German compound words are seen as more legitimate because they lack the spaces and sound German.
- croisillon 2y agoThanks! You wrote it much better than I did!
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- mattlondon 2y agoDo you just hook up and inverter and run your electricity meter "in reverse" then? Is that how this works?
- milianw 2y agoinitially yes but then the local power supplier will come and install a bidirectional meter
- pintxo 2y agoIn Germany, as long as the inverter output is capped at 800W (and solar Wp at 2kWp), no bidirectional meter is needed.
- mystified5016 2y agoIf your home is fully solar powered and you are making more then you're using at the moment, then yes, the meter counts backwards. Most of the time though, your production will be less than your consumption, so your meter will simply not count the watts you don't pull from the grid.
- locallost 2y agoIf you have an old analogue meter it will run in reverse, but this is illegal (you are reducing your metered usage of grid electricity, but the price of that includes grid transmission costs, taxes etc). The modern ones have a separate meter if you want to feed it to the grid, but it's not worth it, there are some fees for that so you'd end up with a few bucks every year. So the way it works, you plug it in, and your appliances can use it and not the electricity from the grid. The excess you don't use gets fed in the grid, generally for free. You save basically on all the taxes, transmission costs etc, which are the majority of the price, if you use your own electricity. The more you can use, the more you will save.
- pjc50 2y agoDigital non-smart meters don't run in reverse. Or at least mine doesn't. I've ended up with three dumb meters: one main one, one that measures energy off the solar panels (used for feed-in-tariff), and one that measures heat pump consumption (which was a surprise of the installation, I think it was fitted for a subsidy that doesn't currently exist). When the panels are backfeeding the main meter just puts a red LED on and stops counting. The solar installation is hardwired, not a balcony one.
- daemonologist 2y agoI think it is simple - electricity from solar panels is cheaper than electricity from the utility companies, which have been too slow to build out solar farms of their own, and it is fashionable to boot. ("Fashionable" is not exactly the word I want; I mean that it would be less popular with your friends and neighbors to operate a coal-fired generator on your balcony.)
- tsss 2y agoWe have them because our electricity is incredibly expensive and government regulation forbids anything bigger than that (at least if you want to do it yourself).
- DamonHD 2y agoSuggested a similar thing to the energy minister in the UK ~2009, but officials nixed it: https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-G83-lite.html https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-G83-lite.html
- wongarsu 2y agoIn Germany on a south-facing balcony, producing your own electricity from solar panels is cheaper than the transmission costs of the power company. Meaning that even if the power company somehow had a too-cheap-to-meter fusion power plant, getting that electricity to you is more expensive than you making your own solar power. Part of this is that transmission costs are higher in Germany than e.g. in the US, partially because Germany has a much more robust system with far fewer outages. How to structure these costs will likely become a bigger topic as more people produce their own electricity but still expect the grid to be there when they need it.
- babypuncher 2y agoThis is sort of my problem with pushing at-home solar as a primary means to de-carbonize our electricity production. We still need grid access, but with more people not getting their electricity from the grid, the cost to maintain it gets shifted to those who still use it as their primary source of energy. And, well, it's not the poor who are installing kilowatts worth of solar capacity and battery storage on their property.
- anotherhue 2y agoI expect that could be mostly solved by changing the billing metric, pay for the ampacity of the hookup not the energy.
- pkulak 2y agoWe _need_ grid access, for now. Batteries are getting so crazy cheap. LFP is hitting the market en masse, and right behind that is sodium ion to halve the price again. And, at least where I am, grid _access_ isn't really the biggest cost, capacity is. My power company would love it if I hooked some batteries up to solar and used that during peak hours so they don't have to upgrade every transmission line between me and a bunch of coal in Idaho. In fact, I know this because they pay me to do *exactly that with time-of-use metering. * I don't actually have any solar, but I do have an electric water heater and an electric car, which are both huge batteries, and easy to time shift the charging of.
- welder 2y agoHere's a company a friend started for balcony solar in Germany: https://www.instagram.com/we.do.solar/ https://www.instagram.com/we.do.solar/
- janalsncm 2y ago> With an outlay of €400-800 and with no installation cost, the panels could pay for themselves within six years For what I’m paying PG&E, this would pay for itself in under a year.
- jeffbee 2y agoLiterally one month. JHC.
- dylan604 2y agoIf mean, if you're monthly bill is that high, JHC, to be sure. My highest monthly bill gets in the neighborhood of the low end of that scale, but that's when it's well over 100° (over 40°C for those that can't do the maths) during the summer months, and that's with shitty windows that leak like a sieve. I'd be taping cardboard over the windows if my bills were as high as your one month
- jeffbee 2y agoThe base allowances in the coastal tariff zone are so low that if someone has a 100-year-old house it's easy to run up hundreds of dollars a month on a utility bill in the winter.
- adrianN 2y agoWhat do you pay per kWh? With 800Wp you can expect a few hundred kWh/a.
- locallost 2y agoIt's a great demonstration how cheap solar actually is. Last time I checked you can get two panels 800w total, inverter and basically everything you need for 500e or less, depending where you buy, and it's probably even cheaper now. If you want to put a larger installation on your roof, it's going to be 1500-2000 per kw, so easily 4x the actual hardware price, so most is just labour, permits etc. But even then it's worth it! What an amazing invention.
- jillesvangurp 2y agoThis kit cost 230 euro: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/SUNNIVA%C2%AE-Balcony-Station-Complete-Socket/dp/B0D9MHVC6F https://www.amazon.de/-/en/SUNNIVA%C2%AE-Balcony-Station-Com... Just the first thing that pops up on amazon.de if I search for "balkonkraftwerk".
- sharpshadow 2y agoNot sure if it is still running but in Berlin you got or get 500€ of your balcony solar installation bill payed back from the city.
- hk1337 2y agoThis sounds like a nice idea but I would imagine either their electrical usage is _really_ low already or this is being given more praise than it deserves. From the article, it seems like they're typically installing 2 - 300-watt solar panels. Most they can install is 800-watt without a certification. Apartments here in the US, at least where I am, have a typical usage of 300 - 800 kW, which is a lot more than 800 watts. Perhaps no A/C, using natural light more, fewer appliances attribute to a much lower monthly usage in Europe than they do in the US? If you can do it, then do it but I don't think it would be as worthwhile here in the US. *EDIT* I am likely thinking incorrectly on this. I am still skeptical of it being useful but not necessarily for that above.
- raihansaputra 2y agoAre you sure it's not 3.3 - 8kW installations? Or maybe it's 300 - 800 kWh energy usage per month? For comparison, Germany has 22kW capacity as standard for homes, and me in Indonesia gets by with AC, appliances, and 2.2kW car charging with a 5.5kW installation.
- hk1337 2y ago*EDIT* I could be mistaken. I went back and dug into it more. Perhaps, the main issue here in the US would be plugging into the grid.
- voisin 2y ago> Apartments here in the US, at least where I am, have a typical usage of 300 - 800 kW, which is a lot more than 800 watts. Isn’t this confusing usage with capacity? To compare them you have to multiply by efficiency and average sunlight hours. Still likely doesn’t fully coverage the high end of that use but the set of apartment usage would certainly have some overlap with the set of generating capacity of 800 watt panels.
- rconti 2y agoMy entire house and car use about 950kWh per month!
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- ethagknight 2y agoVery interesting, I wasn't aware of "plug into the wall" solar provisioning solution that detects if the grid goes down, then it shuts itself down to mitigate the back-feed question, but that seems super easy. Am I right seeing that power is 40 cents per kWh? Thats the 'incentive', I guess gas from Russia has been too volatile. High grid energy prices + a cheap personal solar solution will significantly push innovation for residential electric efficiency.
- oezi 2y agoMore like 30 cents per kwh. No more Russian gas.
- oulipo 2y agoI think in Paris the issue is that because of rules protecting the aesthetics of buildings, you probably wouldn't be allowed to install those...
- pentel-0_5 2y agoIt also wouldn't work in the vast majority of corporate-controlled apartments in America for similar reasons. You aren't allow to fly flags or have decorations in most of these kind of units either, although this kind of rule tends to be selectively enforced.
- jccooper 2y agoThis is impractical in the US as things currently stand; most utilities have a permitting process for a grid tie (anything that backfeeds the grid) and smartmeters are capable of detecting and reporting any backfeed. Mostly the technical aspects are not a problem (most modern meters are two-way); you'd just need a policy like the one in Germany allowing de minimis backfeed.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIf you are actually tying the solar-panel into your house's "grid" couldn't you also make additional mods between your electrical-panel and the meter to prevent backfeed? Or, maybe an inline battery that the solar panel tops off.
- zo1 2y agoIt's a solved problem because this is a feature of most hybrid inverters. The only reason it's not as easy as pie is because of lack of information, and "Scare" tactics promoted by electricity-generation companies.
- jandrese 2y ago> most modern meters are two-way That said, people are generally using whatever meter came with their house, and few older meters were two-way. If you have an older meter and you start backfeeding the grid, you will end up paying for that electricity as if you had bought it off of the grid. The meter isn't smart enough to know which way the current is flowing, it only knows how much current is going past and assumes that all current flows into the house, not out.
- yalogin 2y agoIt's actually a neat idea. So far solar has been a suburb only thing, but the balcony idea is great! Particularly in denser countries it has a lot of potential.
- reportgunner 2y agoWon't denser areas have less sunlight ?
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- standeven 2y agoI really wish we could remove the 100% tariffs on solar panels and EVs from China and let the free market do its thing. It feels like lobbying and red tape are the biggest things holding back the energy transition at this point.
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- hedora 2y agoWe can’t do that. Those are subsidized. That’s completely unfair, unlike in the US, where you get a tax break for buying them. /s
- pjc50 2y agoThose are infuriating, whichever country is applying them. Either you're serious about making the transition happen or you're not.
- dwighttk 2y agosaves an average of 6-12 euro per month
- duxup 2y agoAny chance these one day look better?
- paul_h 2y ago[UK here] It'd be great to have blanket permissions for 800W installs , but I've only a west facing two-story wall without a balcony. That probably needs permits and a small scaffolding tower rather than ladders moving your costs up and delaying your ROI :(
- interludead 2y agoThe more people generate their own power, the less reliant cities are on centralized grids and big utilities
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoSolar seems to be hitting a lot of inflection points recently. Colombia had 0.27GW total installed capacity as of the start of 2024. In that year rooftop solar installed .215GW and utility scale installed 1.41GW So just rooftop nearly doubled all solar installed ever in one year and utility more than 5x'd it
- reportgunner 2y agoWell if you have just one solar panel you can double all installed solar in a matter of minutes and 5x it in matter of an hour.
- rsanek 2y agosurprised nobody is mentioning the huge downside of reduced indoor natural light with this option. i wonder if the mental health decrease is worth the monetary savings.
- reportgunner 2y agoIs it because of wind ?
- zeristor 2y agoSo how does this work, the solar panel is plugged into the flats electricity with no problems? Is there an inverter that can add the power in, can it just be plugged into a normal socket. The article seems to focus on the solar power aspect. What is preventing this from being done in the UK? There are very high safety standards for home electrics, I"m just curious as to how these are resolved.