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I don’t understand this sentiment at all. They didn’t sacrifice their balcony, and this is electricity that the central utility organizations couldn’t generate.

I don’t understand this sentiment at all. They didn’t sacrifice their balcony, and this is electricity that the central utility organizations couldn’t generate. Many parts of the world don’t even allow this kind of solar panel to be used by individuals, so its legality is actually a policy success. Generally, balcony panels are hung off the side of the railing, so no space was lost. If this was blocking out windows or reducing the enjoyment of apartments then I could understand, but this basically unlocks “free” solar panel real estate in apartments, without any real installation costs. Meanwhile, decentralized power generation with all these liminal spaces is basically impossible for a utility company. Hundreds of dollars/euros is not trivial, but spread across years of usage, it’s a pretty affordable way to reduce power consumption, and it’s well within affordable range for the median German household. Plus it’s subsidized! This basically lowers the cost for the utility to create locally generated renewable power, reducing demand over the expensive to maintain public infrastructure. Being able to plug a solar panel into a spare wall outlet and reduce your bill and grid power usage is so easy, anyone can do this. This isn’t allowed in most of the United States, for example, because central authorities banned it due to outdated safety rules. Many areas with this banned have far more sunlight than Germany (eg California), so far more incentive for the population to want it.

hedora 1y ago
People often forget that installation costs dwarf panel and battery costs at this point. A gizmo that had 3kwh of battery (and a fan) sitting behind a well matched solar panel would sell like hotcakes, especially if it supported daisy chaining and back feeding into the grid (with safety interlocks for power outages).
- pintxo 1y ago
  The thing about balcony solar is that there are no 3rd party costs. Just the time you need to install it on your own. I mean, you could pay someone to do it for you, but most people will be able to do it on their own.
kronicum2025 1y ago
> I don’t understand this sentiment at all. They didn’t sacrifice their balcony, and this is electricity that the central utility organizations couldn’t generate. Many parts of the world don’t even allow this kind of solar panel to be used by individuals, so its legality is actually a policy success. Completely disagree. This is definitely electricity that central utility organizations could generate. A central method to generate electricity with solar panels would benefit everyone. This method only benefits the individuals who have their own homes or have balconies. The biggest problem with the above is that now the govt has even less visibility on planning their electricity needs and therefore cannot plan electric infrastructure better. Also, each home is now a single point of failure for its own electricity and this will inevitably feed back to the main grid. The real reason this is happening is because govt is in policy paralysis and cannot provide cheap electricity from solar themselves and have to depend on each individual doing it on its own.
- pintxo 1y ago
  This being Germany, you actually are supposed to register every panel in a central database. So the utilities know where generation is happening. This is for proper solar installs as well as for balcony solar. I have a proper setup on my roof, and installed a 2kW balcony setup (2kWp panels mixed with an inverter limited to 800W) at my in-laws place. Both are registered in the central database. I got a new power meter for mine. But it seems my in-laws are to keep their old power meter for a while, which occasionally just turns backwards, whenever they produce more than they consume.
- kragen 1y ago
  I've never been in a house that isn't a single point of failure for its own electricity. Possibly you didn't think this point through when you wrote it.
  - kronicum2025 1y ago
    Yup, bad point. Sorry about that. I forgot about the feeding into the grid aspect of solar.
- 1y ago
willvarfar 1y ago
Yeah the narrative always seems to be bent by political biases seeping in. It is easy to speculate that if were talking about the flip side about how power company cartels have regulatory capture to prevent home owners from complementing home power needs with private systems then there would be freedom outrage at the system. But a positive story about how a soft european liberal country allowing home owners to complement home power needs with private systems is seen as a failure of the state?

hedora 1y ago

People often forget that installation costs dwarf panel and battery costs at this point. A gizmo that had 3kwh of battery (and a fan) sitting behind a well matched solar panel would sell like hotcakes, especially if it supported daisy chaining and back feeding into the grid (with safety interlocks for power outages).

pintxo 1y ago
The thing about balcony solar is that there are no 3rd party costs. Just the time you need to install it on your own. I mean, you could pay someone to do it for you, but most people will be able to do it on their own.

kronicum2025 1y ago

> I don’t understand this sentiment at all. They didn’t sacrifice their balcony, and this is electricity that the central utility organizations couldn’t generate. Many parts of the world don’t even allow this kind of solar panel to be used by individuals, so its legality is actually a policy success. Completely disagree. This is definitely electricity that central utility organizations could generate. A central method to generate electricity with solar panels would benefit everyone. This method only benefits the individuals who have their own homes or have balconies. The biggest problem with the above is that now the govt has even less visibility on planning their electricity needs and therefore cannot plan electric infrastructure better. Also, each home is now a single point of failure for its own electricity and this will inevitably feed back to the main grid. The real reason this is happening is because govt is in policy paralysis and cannot provide cheap electricity from solar themselves and have to depend on each individual doing it on its own.

pintxo 1y ago
This being Germany, you actually are supposed to register every panel in a central database. So the utilities know where generation is happening. This is for proper solar installs as well as for balcony solar. I have a proper setup on my roof, and installed a 2kW balcony setup (2kWp panels mixed with an inverter limited to 800W) at my in-laws place. Both are registered in the central database. I got a new power meter for mine. But it seems my in-laws are to keep their old power meter for a while, which occasionally just turns backwards, whenever they produce more than they consume.
kragen 1y ago
I've never been in a house that isn't a single point of failure for its own electricity. Possibly you didn't think this point through when you wrote it.
- kronicum2025 1y ago
  Yup, bad point. Sorry about that. I forgot about the feeding into the grid aspect of solar.
1y ago

willvarfar 1y ago

Yeah the narrative always seems to be bent by political biases seeping in. It is easy to speculate that if were talking about the flip side about how power company cartels have regulatory capture to prevent home owners from complementing home power needs with private systems then there would be freedom outrage at the system. But a positive story about how a soft european liberal country allowing home owners to complement home power needs with private systems is seen as a failure of the state?