Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#331

Post by weinzierl » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:32 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #246

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…

"removing all the bureaucracy here"

This is a bit strong, given that you still need to register with the Marktstammdatenregister and get a permit from your landlord (relevant bc homeownership rate I think the high electricity cost has as much to do with the relative success of this than the reduced friction.

On the technical side you are also limited to 800W max and if you want a battery things get complicated quickly. I will still get one probably but it is far from no bureaucracy at all and plug and play - at least not when you want a battery.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#332

Post by vixen99 » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:35 AM UTC

zevon wrote: post #229

vixen99 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but where do you live?

Well, the person you are replying to is in a thread about Germany, mentions balcony solar and said "my little server turns it automatically on" (which is how you would construct that sentence in German instead of "turns it on automatically"), so my wild guess would be Germany. ;)

Point taken! Scanning comments rapidly to move on to actually doing some work today - has its drawbacks.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#333

Post by jagermo » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:36 AM UTC

thinkindie wrote: post #330

jagermo wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some good points, i have a few thoughts to add. Norway: yes, they are doing fine (80% EV, btw, so it seems you can actually use EVs in colder weather... I think the nordics are actually way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to sustainable energy creation, with norway getting about 90% last year from Hydro - super impressive. https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway France: I think they might turn around, beca…

Norway gets most of its wealth from fossil fuel. While it's not Saudi Arabia nor Venezuela, and they invested in long term sustainability, it's not fair to everyone else to say that they are at 80%EV because they are forward thinkers, but because they have the money to do that.

100 % agree. They somehow figured out early that its better to sell to the others and stay renewable themselves.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#334

Post by morsch » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:37 AM UTC

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #188

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…

The fact that balcony solar has such short payback periods really emphasizes the scale of the failure. Why can't utility scale operators use bulk purchases of the exact same panels, in a more optimal installation (south facing, unshaded etc) to achieve similar or better payback periods? Balcony solar is a whole lot like Uber, a way to side step onerous regulators, landlords that won't permit/invest in rooftop install…

> Why can't utility scale operators use bulk purchases of the exact same panels, in a more optimal installation (south facing, unshaded etc) to achieve similar or better payback periods?

Utility scale operators added about 17 GW (peak) solar in 2024, so about 20x as much.

https://strom-report.com/photovoltaik/

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#335

Post by weinzierl » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:41 AM UTC

cjpearson wrote: post #283

jillesvangurp wrote: post #246

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.

And it barely works out in Germany. I did the math for my small city flat with a small south facing balcony and got a realistic payback period of 6 years.

The issue is not solar per se, but that tiny installations are not very efficient. It'd make much more sense to bolster funding for building sized installations.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#336

Post by FabCH » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:43 AM UTC

vintagedave wrote: post #322

> [The solar panels are] connected to a microinverter plugged into a wall outlet and feed electricity directly into his home. Is this safe, feeding electricity into the local cabling? I recall a discussion on HN a few days ago with someone running a parallel cabling setup and there was _strong_ criticism over electrical safety; that was an entirely parallel set of cabling. How would this work re phase, load, how it b…

The microinverter gets the timing signal from the grid and certified microinverters kill the power if they lose mains power.

You are also only allowed to install a couple hundred watts yourself like this, anything above 800 Wp still requires a professional.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#337

Post by BoredPositron » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:45 AM UTC

tirant wrote: post #329

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

Thats a lot of historical revision if you blame a dude who was minister for 3.5 years about decisions made 20-30 years ago. Same for your last paragraph. Nothing even close to that happened in the years he governed. Maybe you should start showing recipes because it looks like your grievances are personal in nature and everything but factual.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#338

Post by grumpy-de-sre » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:45 AM UTC

morsch wrote: post #334

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that balcony solar has such short payback periods really emphasizes the scale of the failure. Why can't utility scale operators use bulk purchases of the exact same panels, in a more optimal installation (south facing, unshaded etc) to achieve similar or better payback periods? Balcony solar is a whole lot like Uber, a way to side step onerous regulators, landlords that won't permit/invest in rooftop install…

> Why can't utility scale operators use bulk purchases of the exact same panels, in a more optimal installation (south facing, unshaded etc) to achieve similar or better payback periods? Utility scale operators added about 17 GW (peak) solar in 2024, so about 20x as much. https://strom-report.com/photovoltaik/

Exactly! Wind expansion has been going great as-well.

I guess the more fundamental question is why these expansions haven't led to savings for energy consumers and why the economics of these micro-systems are so attractive.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#339

Post by walthamstow » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:48 AM UTC

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #271

jillesvangurp wrote: post #246

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

I'm not German nor do I live there, but I would have thought the legacy of Habeck would be more negative due to his opposition to nuclear.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#340

Post by spwa4 » Mon, Oct 06, 2025, 8:49 AM UTC

jagermo wrote: post #333

thinkindie wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway gets most of its wealth from fossil fuel. While it's not Saudi Arabia nor Venezuela, and they invested in long term sustainability, it's not fair to everyone else to say that they are at 80%EV because they are forward thinkers, but because they have the money to do that.

100 % agree. They somehow figured out early that its better to sell to the others and stay renewable themselves.

Yes, like any other argument about Norway, the situation must and shall be considered to be that they are smart and progressive and forward thinking, rather than rich. It's "not" that they have money to burn to do the new fancy thing. It must be forward-thinking policies!

There's a small amount of truth, I'll admit. I guess you can say that Norway's policies are easily a lot smarter than Saudi Arabia's policies. But what is always done is comparing Norway's policies to, say, Spain or France and declare Norway a progressive forward-thinking nation with great and working policies. In reality the opposite is true because France and Spain can't just fix big problems by showering them in money.