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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

#201

Post by thiago_fm »

kragen wrote: post #173
slow_typist wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t want PV to crowd out local food production though, land is generally overused in Germany and the pressure is rising.

That could start happening if Germany's electrical energy consumption were to grow 100× or so, yeah. That might sound like I'm being sarcastic, but no, cheaper forms of energy tend to lead to more energy usage, and solar energy is cheaper, so we might see a lot more energy usage. But we're talking about problems we'll have in 20 years after we've solved global warming.

That will never happen in Germany.

Most people in Germany don't live big and don't have any intentions of doing so. No AC and people have real concerns about the environment and our impact on it.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#202

Post by kragen »

slow_typist wrote: post #186
kragen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could start happening if Germany's electrical energy consumption were to grow 100× or so, yeah. That might sound like I'm being sarcastic, but no, cheaper forms of energy tend to lead to more energy usage, and solar energy is cheaper, so we might see a lot more energy usage. But we're talking about problems we'll have in 20 years after we've solved global warming.

It happens already. Lease for green land (probably wrong terminus) and arable land went up by more than 30% in ten years [1]. PV is arguably a very small factor of influence yet. But the pressure is real. [1] https://www.bmel-statistik.de/landwirtschaft/landwirtschaftl...

That page doesn't say anything about PV. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/p... says that 17 million hectares are used for agriculture in Germany, 48000 hectares are used for golf courses, and (as of 02021) 32000 hectares were used for photovoltaics, which would be 0.2% of the agricultural area. I'm having a hard time finding current figures, but I doubt photovoltaics are more than 2% of the agricultural area yet. I don't think that's why land prices have risen 30%.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#203

Post by __bjoernd »

SoftTalker wrote: post #63
melasadra wrote: post #19

Some people laugh at the 800W output. However, in Indonesia, roughly half of the 300 million people live in homes with an electricity capacity of 900W or less. Wish these kind of panels were available at that price here. We have pretty much 12 hours of sunlight every single day but household solar panel is discouraged by the state owned utilities.

[flagged]

I don't think you understand how this works. People voluntarily do this. No one is forced to. Public power providers exist and work. Balcony solar is added and helps save some cost because you don't buy those 800W from the public utility provider.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#205

Post by __bjoernd »

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…

Are you seriously asking why individuals are supposed to take responsibility for themselves?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#206

Post by vixen99 »

john61 wrote: post #175

I have cut my warm water costs by 80% with balcony solar panels. I have a warm water heating pump with 600 W electrical power. My little server turns it automatically on when the solar access power is greater than 540 W (measured by the smart meter). This generates usually enough warm water for our household. Also the solar panels cover to idle power of the house of 50-100 W very easily during daytime. This pays off…

Yes, but where do you live?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#207

Post by oezi »

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

900 wp systems cost around 300 EUR including inverter and fixation but excluding labor and produces 150-200 EUR in electricity savings.

Installation is 2-4 hours when you do it yourself.

My city Berlin is subsidizing 250 EUR of the purchase/installation cost but it wasn't worth the paper work hassle to me.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#208

Post by icetank »

petesergeant wrote: post #196

> “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.

Total energy need is not equal to total electricity need. And electricity is a lot more expensive then heating energy. So the cost savings can still be significant.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#209

Post by h05sz487b »

SoftTalker wrote: post #63
melasadra wrote: post #19

Some people laugh at the 800W output. However, in Indonesia, roughly half of the 300 million people live in homes with an electricity capacity of 900W or less. Wish these kind of panels were available at that price here. We have pretty much 12 hours of sunlight every single day but household solar panel is discouraged by the state owned utilities.

[flagged]

Noone is forced or economically has to do this.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#210

Post by kronicum2025 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #75
SoftTalker wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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 o…

> 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.

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