Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

Post by seydor » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:04 AM UTC

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #39

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.

To be sure, when talking about solar panels, 800W is the nominal/nameplate capacity. That's how much it generates when conditions are perfect and the sun is shining straight down on them. Most of the time an 800W installation will produce rather less than that. You'd need rather more panels (and/or some combination with batteries) to hit 900W output constantly. (on the other hand, do you need 900W constantly, or is t…

Post by adrianN » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:06 AM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #309

adrianN wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs the state nothing to remove regulations preventing the installations and people who buy one see ROI of 15-20%. It also helps the grid by moving production closer to consumption.

> It also helps the grid by moving production closer to consumption. On the side of the grid, balcony solar means grid maintenance is supported by less revenue (your utility bill pays for the grid, balcony solar expenses don't). On the side of the producer, it means manageable production means are only amortized when balcony solar isn't producing (this isn't a small factor in a grid where electricity costs frequently…

Post by KomoD » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:07 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #310

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that these things are usually hindered by the government's bureaucracy, maybe the best title would be "Germany's government removes obstacles preventing residents from outfitting..."

Insisting that every improvement must be framed as something bad about government is how USA government became downright horrible.

Post by pyrale » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:09 AM UTC

hamandcheese wrote: post #133

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…

> Why can the government or industry not build solar power at an industrial scale This seems like a false dichotomy to me. Germany is a pretty rich company. They can do both if they want to.

Post by watwut » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:13 AM UTC

akoboldfrying wrote: post #303

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You characterise massively distributed power generation as a single point of failure for each house? Even though they also have the grid? I don't think you know what single point of failure means. This is the opposite of a single point of failure architecture.

I agree that GP's take is broadly wrong, but there is a sense in which it does introduce a single point of failure: the sun. If everyone has solar panels, an overcast day zaps an entire city/region.