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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

#191

Post by slow_typist »

adrianN wrote: post #177
slow_typist wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not if you value the time you put into the project, that can easily double or triple the payback time.

It takes literally two hours to install and plug it in if you have two left hands like me.

Plus the time getting the material, driving to the hardware store another time to get something you forgot, doing the registration, plus the time needed for planning/ calculation of economical feasibility/ decision making. Even at a very moderate 50 € per hour rate (for the typical Gamer) the material cost is the smallest part of the project. Treat it as a hobby, but don’t tell me it is an investment.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#193

Post by bulbar »

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…

That seem to be the conclusion when you start with the assumption "vertical scaling is always the best option". When you don't start with that assumption, maybe you reach a different conclusion.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#194

Post by slow_typist »

kragen wrote: post #151
slow_typist wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is more than ten years old, efficiency of PV is much better today, which probably brings emissions down a bit.

Efficiency has improved somewhat, but also, the cost to manufacture PV is enormously lower than it was then, which means that it's using much less materials and energy to produce. Therefore the energy payback time should be much shorter.

How much shorter depends on the fraction of the energy cost in the first place then. Price is not even an upper bound for energy which is cheap in China, and also production is probably subsidised.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#195

Post by adrianN »

55555 wrote: post #146
adrianN wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a ridiculous take. I have one of these systems and a 2kWh battery attached to it. It reduces my electricity bill by about half and will pay for itself in less than five years. I sacrifice nothing of my balcony, the panels hang outside.

Can you break down the costs and subsidies you had? Genuinely curious

A kW of panels produces about 1000kWh a year in a sunny location in Germany. Electricity is around 30c/kWh. A 1kW+2kWh batteries and inverter set costs about 1k€ shipped from Amazon.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#196

Post by petesergeant »

> “Even if we attached panels to all suitable balconies across the country, we’d still only manage to meet 1 percent or less of our overall energy needs”

That's a shame, and makes the whole thing feel performative, especially for a country that nixed nuclear.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#197

Post by thiago_fm »

plantain wrote: post #67
kumarvvr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can the government or industry not build solar power at an industrial scale Because there is always a good amount of loss in transmissions. For solar, the best thing for grid and consumers is to have it very very close to consumption. Ideally, a home with a good capacity battery, coupled with solar panels, and a smart grid connected controller that charges the batteries based on grid conditions of demand and su…

The transmission losses are trivial. 5-10% max. It makes no sense to isolate batteries behind meters. Sharing batteries on a neighborhood or suburban level would make far more sense. We are meant to be a society, not libertarians living in proximity.

That is so wrong, both your take about transmission losses and the expectations that there is enough land in a 'neighborhood' to do that.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#198

Post by nisten69 »

adrianN wrote: post #183
nisten69 wrote: post #168

This would be very cute if it was some 3rd world island country grasping at the straws to improve their quality of life...doing this. But you're fucking Germany bro....where's your massproduced precision reactors and turbines everywhere..the planet needs work...what the f.. are you guys even doing..a rising standard of living means 10-100x more energy you know that right? This whole attitude feels like clapping for a…

Standard of living has been decoupled from energy consumption for quite some time now in developed countries.

Complemetely untrue. The evidence is pretty clear. There's no such thing as a low energy country with a high standard of living.

If I were to pick the #1 thing that most European are literally ignorant about is exactly this fact. Data below:

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$ui$chart$cursorMode=hand;;...

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#199

Post by slow_typist »

cycomanic wrote: post #140
slow_typist wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition, only the end customer pays VAT. But also on grid power in Germany. So no subsidy here.

That's sort of my point. You are essentially getting to parity to a grid operator, who does not pay VAT.

I see, but the grid operator has to collect the VAT for every kWh from the customer. I don’t pay VAT for my balcony PV and also not for the energy I get from it. That is not parity, I as a producer have an advantage here.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#200

Post by kragen »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #189
kragen wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Need."

If you want the rules that exist and the rules that ought to exist to get closer together, do you not need to reckon what they ought to be?

Well, if you don't have any such compass, your efforts will be at best ineffectual. But an even more likely reason your efforts will be ineffectual is that the change you want to make is to a point outside the possibility space determined by the internal incentive structures of the institution.

Analogously, you might reckon that the best place for a nickel mine would be on 16 Psyche, because that's where the largest surface nickel deposits are. Or you might reckon that it would be good for an interpreter to give an error when the user attempts to run an infinite loop. But, lacking an interplanetary spaceship or a solution to the Halting Problem, these calculations are of little value.

The most effective response I've found to regulations that harm me is to leave.

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