Are they using EU manufactured solar panels? If not, I don't feel like this is real independence.
‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
311–320 of 365 posts
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#312Are they using EU manufactured solar panels? If not, I don't feel like this is real independence.
Exactly. This is such a goofy idea, that you can buy something from China and use it in the EU and suddenly you’re “energy independent”. No, you’re China dependent. I guess the argument would be that solar panels last a long time and thus you’ve bought yourselves 20 years or whatever the life span is, of energy independence from China? But you’ll need new batteries sooner than that.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#313Are they using EU manufactured solar panels? If not, I don't feel like this is real independence.
Exactly. This is such a goofy idea, that you can buy something from China and use it in the EU and suddenly you’re “energy independent”. No, you’re China dependent. I guess the argument would be that solar panels last a long time and thus you’ve bought yourselves 20 years or whatever the life span is, of energy independence from China? But you’ll need new batteries sooner than that.
Solar panels are not that difficult to make. It’s just difficult to make them cheaper than China.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#314The UK previously didn't allow small plug in solar panels (the kind that you just plug in to a mains socket) due to, I believe, safety reasons. This has changed within the last few days https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/solar-roadmap/
Plugin solar doesn't make much impact anyway even in Germany because of shades/angles and most of the time- no storage. Rooftop is another discussion
My balcony solar produced an average of 5kWh per day in the last month. That is about as much as I consume.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#315Are they using EU manufactured solar panels? If not, I don't feel like this is real independence.
It's a different kind of dependence. Sure you need China for this particular panel you're buying now but from then on you are no longer dependent on them.
Compare that to oil and gas which has to continually be shipped. And no one says that we won't figure out how to produce these things ourselves one day.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#316Distributed energy production / storage is the key for resiliency in the future. Every solar farm doesn't need to be China Size - it doesn't even need to be a "farm", just put them on roofs. And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes there are times when solar doesn't produce energy, but there are also times where it OVERproduces.
If we just hadn't centralized control of the inverters to a few (chinese) companies... Great read on the risks to our power infrastructure from remote controlled solar inverters: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/the-gigantic-unregulated-p...
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's aluminum, glass, silicon, and some conductive metal. Surely you all have those materials. And even if you don't make them yourselves, they aren't make and then burn like fossil fuels, they are durable infrastructure, you don't have to replace them often - they have an expected lifespan of >30 years. Buy as many as China will sell you, and once you have more than enough installed, you're good for a long time, reg…
> expected lifespan of >30 years More like > I think being reliant on the fossil fuel supply chain for so long France isn't. And they are net exporting their (nuclear fission) electricity to their neighbours who shut down nuclear power plants.
After 25 years, their production has dropped to 80%.
Unlike what you imply, they don't explode and you have to replace them all. They just keep producing, but less.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#318For european individuals, yes. For european nations, not in the least. They try to avoid independent consumers and producers of energy with all the regulations they can throw to them.
What nations are you talking about? E.g. in Germany, you can buy up to 7kW of panels, screw them onto your roof, wire them up with controller and battery and feed up to 800W into local grid, no one is gonna stop you or anything (only thing you need to do is register online with the grid operator if you have >2kW of panels). Legislation is, in fact, specifically made so people (i.e. landlord) actually can't easily sto…
Not quite as I understand it. At the low end, a couple of panels, yes. Beyond 960W of panels you will still need an an electrician rather than just the Schuko plug.
It's not clear to me why, for example, 2kW of panels which are also limited to 800W need need the special plug.
Hopefully I'm wrong!
"With a standard Schuko plug, a maximum of 960 watts peak is allowed on the DC side, regulated by DIN VDE V 0126-95. With the Wieland connector, a special feed-in socket, the limit increases to 2,000 watts peak. Anyone wanting to operate a system with up to 7,000 watts of module power will need a permanently installed feed-in socket, thus entering a range that is technically possible but also more complex to implement."
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#319The UK previously didn't allow small plug in solar panels (the kind that you just plug in to a mains socket) due to, I believe, safety reasons. This has changed within the last few days https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/solar-roadmap/
There is a real safety issue with plug-in solar panels and plug-in batteries. Things go wrong if other loads are on the same circuit, which is almost unavoidable with a plug-in system. Consider a circuit in a home, designed to carry 16A like a common EU/UK circuit, protected by a 16A breaker. Then plug in solar or a battery that delivers just a small 10A. Now in case some other thing on that circuit draws 26A, the br…
So the danger comes when you plug the solar into a wall socket but there are other devices connected to the same fuse of circuit breaker. So...
Instead of the solar having a plug that goes into a wall socket, why not have a plug on it that screws directly into the fusebox ? Then you know that it is the ONLY device on the circuit.
Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms
#320They are going to start selling solar panels at Lidl, a German-owned grocery store chain https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/house-garden/l...
It's been the case for several years in Lidl Germany and about a year in France