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Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

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Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#51

Post by lucb1e »

PieTime wrote: post #38
lucb1e wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by 'that price'? Are there heavy import tariffs or another artificial reason why you can't order from the same chinese manufacturers as germany does? I would have thought that the issue is purchasing power inequality between germany and indonesia, not that they're not available globally at a similar price

Some countries with state gas or utility monopoly will ensure legislation blocks solar power. Example Thailand has huge solar potential but cheap gas, so they block solar panel installations Yes, there is inequality as can be seen in Pakistan. But once restrictions are dropped the solar panels take off.

Surely you can do what you want within your own home, so long as you don't hook it up to the grid?

I'm also not sure if this fits with the price restriction they mentioned. Prohibitions can't be bypassed by paying a higher price, unless it were to refer to bribes

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#54

Post by pfdietz »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #34
lucb1e wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I can follow that. I've noticed on electricitymaps.com that, for Germany, the coal component never disappears, no matter if you have optimal wind+solar conditions near the summer solstice and prices are far into the negatives. Apparently it's cheaper to let it run the power plant at negative prices for days , than to make it stop burning coal for those days. That renewables with storage would make that finally…

Yes. Phasing out coal is a multi step process. The next step is coal plants forced to become peakers thermally cycling daily because they are loosing too much. As seen in for example Australia: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant... The next step is being a reserve plant only activated seasonally. Finally rounding off with purely being a reserve plant and then decommissioning when it costs to…

Another possibility is retrofitting the coal plant with a thermal battery.

https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy

> 3) (medium term) The world-conquering dream is for our PV-based steam to replace fossil-generated steam at conventional power plants. That will let us feed electricity back into the grid using otherwise stranded generating assets (e.g. a coal plant). You might see this as a way to combine an existing, uncompetitive coal plant with thermal energy storage and captive renewables to give it economics more similar to a natural gas power plant.

See also: "Thermal Energy Storage in Dirt for Repowering Decommissioned Coal Plants" (although I believe this assumes the storage is using power from the grid):

https://findingspress.org/article/141340-thermal-energy-stor...

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#55

Post by plantain »

This is such a total failure of state capacity.

Why can the government or industry not build solar power at an industrial scale, and then bring it to people's homes via the existing infrastructure at a price that makes this kind of micro-scale setup completely uneconomical?

It's bad enough when we have to put solar panels on actual roofs to reduce electricity bills. This is just absurd. Where are the economies of scale? Why are individuals having to take responsibility for their own energy generation? Are we doing our own sewer and water supplies next?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#56

Post by blackjack_ »

lucb1e wrote: post #12
lm28469 wrote: post #2

I'm in Germany and keep seeing these, I always wonder what a 400w poorly oriented panel getting like 3 hours of sun a day is good for. If they weren't basically free thanks to tax reduction and other tricks I assume no one would get them

Article cites manufacturers as saying that > installing a couple of 300-watt panels will give savings of up to 30% on a typical household’s electricity bill, but there are lots of variables that come with that claim. It depends on which direction the balcony faces and whether the panels are shaded part of the day. My german electricity bill is around 1200 euros a year. Sign me up for a one-time purchase of 426€ to sa…

Yeah so depends on your cost per kWh, and usage time versus production time. My 800W of balcony panels can theoretically produce 3-4 kWh per day (they peak at about 550w of actual production), but they generally produce a lot less than that. This is because my usage during production time is both less than that and also very spiky (my power usage is often 0w or 100-200w base load, with 2kw spikes as the compressor in the refrigerator kicks on, or some other device kicks on). So the savings for me isn't 3 years payoff, it's probably more like 6. But yes, these panels will product for 25-30 years. So yeah, they can pay for themselves very quickly depending on your usage patterns.

I'm in the US, and over here we also have some other complicating factors (here we have 2 sets of breakers that are 180 degrees out of phase and so the solar panels can only feed into one half of the breakers without extra complications. I only sort of understand this, someone else can explain better), so solar panels plugged into the balcony that don't backfeed straight to the grid can only cover a subset of the usage. In Germany you have 240v power so I would assume you would hit payoff very quickly.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#57

Post by gpm »

lucb1e wrote: post #51
PieTime wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries with state gas or utility monopoly will ensure legislation blocks solar power. Example Thailand has huge solar potential but cheap gas, so they block solar panel installations Yes, there is inequality as can be seen in Pakistan. But once restrictions are dropped the solar panels take off.

Surely you can do what you want within your own home, so long as you don't hook it up to the grid? I'm also not sure if this fits with the price restriction they mentioned. Prohibitions can't be bypassed by paying a higher price, unless it were to refer to bribes

The systems in the article are hooked up to the grid though.

They're hooked up in an extremely safe and responsible manner, but it's understandable that there are regulations about what can be hooked up, and simply not surprising that they haven't been updated to say "yeah, this is ok".

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#58

Post by Kim_Bruning »

plantain wrote: post #55

This is such a total failure of state capacity. Why can the government or industry not build solar power at an industrial scale, and then bring it to people's homes via the existing infrastructure at a price that makes this kind of micro-scale setup completely uneconomical? It's bad enough when we have to put solar panels on actual roofs to reduce electricity bills. This is just absurd. Where are the economies of sca…

Oh wow, that's an interesting position. I'm really curious to hear where you live and/or from what background you say this?

Btw, this article is about putting a solar panel not on your roof, but on your balcony. People do it because it's cheap and saves money on electricity.

Think of it like growing herbs on your balcony. Sure, industrial farms have economies of scale, but you still save money growing your own basil (and it's fresh!). Same principle. Slightly higher yield.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#59

Post by GaggiX »

plantain wrote: post #55

This is such a total failure of state capacity. Why can the government or industry not build solar power at an industrial scale, and then bring it to people's homes via the existing infrastructure at a price that makes this kind of micro-scale setup completely uneconomical? It's bad enough when we have to put solar panels on actual roofs to reduce electricity bills. This is just absurd. Where are the economies of sca…

Solar power is fundamentally different from traditional power plants because it's modular. Since the panel is the basic unit, a network of rooftop systems is as effective as a single large installation. A rooftop installation makes perfect sense.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#60

Post by juttern »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #45
jay_kyburz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The solar panels are on the sides of the balcony, where the safety barriers are usually opaque /solid.

Is this a German thing? My balcony has spaced metal bars and I would hate to see the state of it if there were solid barriers keeping it cool, moist, and building up debris.
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