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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

#411

Post by kohlerm »

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

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He is on of the few politicians who follow his beliefs about what needs to be done, less so about what is popular. He also made sure Germany had enough gas. He had nothing todo with the pushback of nuclear energy (that was the CDU/Merkel). Nuclear energy is not cheap.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#412

Post by slightwinder »

jansan wrote: post #383
MaKey wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's nuclear power plants were shut down by the governments before him. What do you think he should have done differently?

The plan to shut down nuclear power plants was done under the premise of a stable supply of Russian gas. This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock (at that time nuclear power was even classified as sustainable by the EU btw.), he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. In my opinion this was the worst political decision of Germa…

> This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock

There was nothing to mitigate. The nuclear plants deliver electricity, which was never a problem in Germany.

> he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable.

That's a lie. They even prolonged the usage for some months to appease the fearmongers. But without fuel, there was a limit on how they could run anyway.

> unless he wanted to hurt German industry on purpose, which is not even unthinkable.

Ah, you're from the conspiracy-bubble...

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#413

Post by kohlerm »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #382
Timon3 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just to be explicit, because I see people lie about this very often: this decision was made by the conservative party (CDU) while the Greens were not part of the government.

Incorrect. The decision was made by the SPD (leftist)+ Green coalition government in 2000, and was a condition by the Greens to enter the coalition (and then was adopted by an SPD chancellor who later took a job with Gazprom). When the conservatives got back into power a decade later, they started to roll back the nuclear exit. But during the panic after the Japan tsunami this policy became unpopular so the conservat…

Merkel (CDU) pushed it after Fukushima, because "oh it's dangerous", which wasn't rational, but she knew people wanted it

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#415

Post by V__ »

jansan wrote: post #383
MaKey wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's nuclear power plants were shut down by the governments before him. What do you think he should have done differently?

The plan to shut down nuclear power plants was done under the premise of a stable supply of Russian gas. This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock (at that time nuclear power was even classified as sustainable by the EU btw.), he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. In my opinion this was the worst political decision of Germa…

> the worst political decision of German politics since WW2

Except the shutdown had no negative effect. There was no supply shock and prices keep trending down since (Though that of course doesn't mean because of). Let's keep it real. I can probably name worse German political decisions from this week.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#416

Post by adrianN »

kragen wrote: post #279
piva00 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has changed permitting laws to allow small-scale solar, i.e.: balcony solar, the difference is that the nominal output is much lower (350W vs 800W for Germany) which, by policy, makes it less attractive. So it isn't that France economic policies have made installing balcony solar unattractive, it's the permitting policies which are blocking people from installing more. You have it inverted, pun intended.

Germany could allow 2000W, or 4000W, instead of only 800W, but you seem to be missing Alexey's point. Germany has very high electricity prices, even higher than the US (see https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-e... ), and this is due to policy failures in Germany. That's what makes these balcony systems so appealing. I'm not sure that the outcome of having a lot of decentralized solar generation…

The 800W are to prevent fires. You can’t just arbitrarily raise those limits.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#417

Post by mk89 »

slightwinder wrote: post #412
jansan wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan to shut down nuclear power plants was done under the premise of a stable supply of Russian gas. This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock (at that time nuclear power was even classified as sustainable by the EU btw.), he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. In my opinion this was the worst political decision of Germa…

> This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock There was nothing to mitigate. The nuclear plants deliver electricity, which was never a problem in Germany. > he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. That's a lie. They even prolonged the usage for some months to appease the fearmongers. But without fuel, there was a limit on how t…

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Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#418

Post by owenversteeg »

There's a funny comment downthread that says "It's like the backyard furnaces during the Great Leap Forward."

Everyone replying disagrees, but I think it's a perfect analogy: just like the backyard furnaces, these small-scale installations are inefficient, provide a negligible portion of total energy needs (<1% of total energy needs if everyone in Germany did it, from TFA), look ugly and - this is the most important - provide the feeling of doing something about a serious problem without actually doing anything substantial.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#419

Post by mk89 »

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…

So all we needed from the Greens was 1 law to simplify the installation of (small) solar panels.

We got the full package and started the deindustrializion instead.

Seems like a good deal :)

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#420

Post by benjiro »

jansan wrote: post #383
MaKey wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's nuclear power plants were shut down by the governments before him. What do you think he should have done differently?

The plan to shut down nuclear power plants was done under the premise of a stable supply of Russian gas. This supply abruptly stopped, but instead of using the remaining nuclear power plants to mitigate the supply shock (at that time nuclear power was even classified as sustainable by the EU btw.), he even accelerated the shutdown and sold it as inevitable. In my opinion this was the worst political decision of Germa…

Those 3 plants had been running on "deferred maintenance" as the plant shutdown was planned years ago. Keeping the plants open will have resulted in a ton of money to maintain the safety of the plants going forwards.

This was one of the biggest factors in the shutdown. Even if the plants stayed open, multiple reactors needed maintenance (and thus shutdown of those rectors).

Remember, they kept the open even longer then the planned shutdown (what was already extended before).

And the issue with the prices was not nuclear. By the time those plants shutdown, market prices already stabilized to pre-war levels. I remember this clearly as my renewal of my electricity contract came up, and ironically, my electrical price was even 2 cent/kwh lower then my 2021 contract.

The biggest issue for the German industry was not nuclear energie, it was the gas. And not because of power generation but because gas is used in several chemical reactions, with basf moving their production to the US. And thus more costs because supply chain changes. The LNG that we import is more expensive then the ultra cheap Russian gas we got.

And THAT is a issue for the German industry. And even more so with the US pushing to be the sole EU supplier for LNG (aka to replace Russia and use their leverage on the EU).

Anyway, a lot of your opinion is based upon the wrong conclusion.

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