> Do these setups have auto shut off if they see no other power on the plug they are on? Yes. This is Germany we are talking here. I doubt any other country has higher (and more annoying) safety standards.
Well of course but the manufacturers of the micro inverters sure try to cheat: https://www.heise.de/news/RelayGate-Deye-Solar-Microinverter...
From what I remember, it turned out that the electronics were sufficient. Though the chance of issues (e.g. in case of a software but) were/are increased.
Germany did one simple thing (uncharacteristically) which is removing all the bureaucracy here. Just go ahead and do it. It's fine. Cost in the article is cited at 550 euro. I just browsed amazon.de and you can buy complete plug and play kits here in Germany for as little as 239 euro. Most kits are priced between 300-350 euro. I did not see a many kits over 500. I pay about 70 euro per month for electricity. If it sa…
A big factor in the quick return (and maybe one reason for its popularity) is that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world. The ROI doesn't look as attractive in France, the US or Norway.
If you break even in Germany in 3 years, you'll break even in France in 4. Maybe faster, given the differences in climate.
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.
Is it discouraged so hard that you can't get it at all? I'd think it would be pretty hard to keep people from importing solar panels from Vietnam or Thailand—although of course you'd probably have to put it somewhere that surveillance drones could see it, if you want it to get any sun. (In that case, if you have a rooftop, maybe you could put it under a frosted-glass skylight.) If anything, I'd expect the prices to b…
https://www.tokopedia.com/ is the Indonesian Amazon. You can get everything it seems, also grid-tied inverters, but the prices are higher than in Europe from a quick check. Probably import taxes.
> German regulations limit balcony solar systems to 800 watts, enough to power a small fridge or charge a laptop. That gotta be a big laptop!
Only if you have batteries in between because the sun isn’t shining 24/7 in Germany (and elsewhere). The costs for batteries are as nearly always out of the debate when news papers/portals are glorifying this German balcony subsidy scheme (costs for the public due to power feed-in which isn’t mentioned at all in this article). In the grist article the battery issue is mentioned only in one sentence. The power feed-in…
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.
It wouldn't be an upper bound if energy were free , but it isn't. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-e... lists China as US$0.08/kWh, but that's the residential price; industry pays a bit more. But it's a countrywide average. Intensive investigations of Chinese "subsidies" from the US Department of Commerce have come up with embarrassingly little. The current €0.100/Wp price level (12¢/Wp) com…
Process energy will still be a lot cheaper than .08 US$/kWh in China. I doubt they process glass with electric ovens. OTOH that is primary energy then, which kind of supports your argument. Still other emissions in the silicon supply chain that cause global warming are also relevant. If I find the time, I‘ll look for recent LCA.
Germany did one simple thing (uncharacteristically) which is removing all the bureaucracy here. Just go ahead and do it. It's fine. Cost in the article is cited at 550 euro. I just browsed amazon.de and you can buy complete plug and play kits here in Germany for as little as 239 euro. Most kits are priced between 300-350 euro. I did not see a many kits over 500. I pay about 70 euro per month for electricity. If it sa…
Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU
The real output is probably 200-250 W in perfect conditions. It just points to how insanely expensive German electricity is after they decided to commit the double suicide of ditching nuclear and Russian gas.
Russia gas is suicide. Especially considering that Russia plans war against the Europe and even already started act on those plans.
This is a ridiculous take. Germany did not screw up their energy policy, they had a transition plan that ended up not working due to one of the partners in that plan starting a war and believing that they had Germany by the short hairs to stop them from interfering. For individuals in Europe that have the possibility to spend a few hundred (or even a few thousand) bucks up front to lower their energy bill is a win fo…
Well, Germany made an assumption that their „partner”, which already was starting wars, would at least keep them far enough from their home turf. It backfired spectacularly and we can blame German government for that. Not much to disagree about generating energy at home though.
The 'handel durch wandel' policy was always predicated on the fact that economic pressure would be a strong tool to force russia to abandon its policy of expansion. It did not work. I don't blame the politicians so much for trying as I do for not realizing way earlier that it clearly wasn't working. The revolving door to high positions in the russian oil industry should have been forbidden to them and obviously they should have known better. But hope springs eternal and I can see why they fell for it, even if I think it was dumb (and I already thought so at the time, but I'm more of a pessimist I guess).
> Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels A more fitting title would be "Germany's citizens outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels". The current phrasing makes it sound like it's somehow a thing done by the government, which is not the case. If anything the government is one of the many forces slowing down this progress. And yes, I am aware of things like grid security and stability…
In my city, you could get financial support if you installed a "Balkonkraftwerk".
Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU
According to his Instagram, he is currently working in Copenhagen: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOFwjUfDXdp/
Thanks for the update! I wonder if he changed his mind on the Berkeley offer [1]. Part time role though so maybe he just hasn't relocated.