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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

#531

Post by martin_a »

mschuster91 wrote: post #380
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep in a lot of ways it's a failure of the electricity market. It's absolutely bonkers how much I pay for electricity while I sit in the shadow of a giant onshore wind farm in Brandenburg. Transmission losses are nothing at this distance and the turbines cover the towns needs many times over. But because of the lack of regional and dynamic pricing (and tax burden) we pay ridiculous rates. I think if folks could finan…

> I think if folks could financially benefit from renewable projects in their neighborhoods, suddenly citizens opposition would fall apart. That's actually happening already in some places - in Thüringen, nearby residents of a windmill get a share of the income [1], and the local municipality also gets a sizable amount... in small Mühlenfließ (Brandenburg) with less than 1000 souls living there, the 16 windmills prov…

More and more "Energiegenossenschaften" are also founded, I think. At least here in the South-West near Freiburg it feels like every second larger village or community has its own Energiegenossenschaft. They are working on getting solar on every roof, pushing water and wind turbine projects forward and are really working on making the switch to renewables happen. I'm looking to get into some of them to fund the cause. :-)

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#532

Post by forty »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #506
forty wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story I like to tell here when nuclear chat come up: this summer (in France) they had to stop some nuclear plant because of the heat, which was causing the river used to cool the reaction to over heat. Right when people needed plenty of electricity for A/C. At least solar was there and working at it's best when we needed it ^^ (this is just for trolling the "renewable are not there when we need it" discourse ;)…

France was a net exporter of electricity all summer so no idea of what you are talking about. Slowing down some nuclear plants due to this kind of external condition is fully expected. They are not stopped by the way just slowed down. Nuclear is modulable. People barely use A/C in France by the way. > Anyway, the thing we'll need for better using solar is storage, if we can make some clean ones, it will be a solution…

People do use A/C more and more in France for obvious reasons, even in the northern part (it has been the trend in the south already for a while now).

I'm not sure what I said is incompatible with being a net exporter? There was a lot of sun and heat, they had to shutdown some nuclear power plants, but the overall electricy production was doing fine, because they did not have to shutdown all the plants (but how about in a few years with even hotter weather?) and obviously solar was doing well.

And yes, I agree we don't have good storage yet, but then we can decide to invest in finding solutions or to try to re-learn how to make nuclear power plants in less than 12 years. Personally my intuition is that more distributed / local energy and also which doesn't have to rely on a state monopoly is better and more resilient (ask Ukraine) so I'd put my money on storage.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#533

Post by forty »

p2detar wrote: post #507
forty wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story I like to tell here when nuclear chat come up: this summer (in France) they had to stop some nuclear plant because of the heat, which was causing the river used to cool the reaction to over heat. Right when people needed plenty of electricity for A/C. At least solar was there and working at it's best when we needed it ^^ (this is just for trolling the "renewable are not there when we need it" discourse ;)…

Germany and Belgium’s net electricity imports from France for 2024 are 27 TWh, which dwarf anything imported from Germany to France. [0] If anything, this only showed that renewables and nuclear actually work very well together and relying on just one of both is shortsightedness and bad planing. 0 - https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/france-battu-record-ex...

I don't disagree with this point of view. Then the debate remain: should we (France) create more nuclear power plants now, or invest in reducing energy consumption and adding more renewables to the mix.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#534

Post by ReptileMan »

dgroshev wrote: post #495
ReptileMan wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>War with Russia is a real possibility No it is not because of 3 reasons: 1. Russia has no resources to wage war on NATO 2. Russia has no resources to wage war on NATO 3. Russia has no resources to wage war on NATO War with russia is mostly hawks' and chicken littles' of the media wet dreams.

Russia is still by far the biggest country in Europe, with tons of natural resources and support from the biggest industrial manufacturer on the planet. It has an industry that is now fully oriented to produce military goods in war-time quantities that it can't easily spin down. Russia does have resources, it has the desire, and importantly the state it depends on (China) has a very strong motivation to have Nato dis…

Except you cannot involve in any way NATO in taiwan. Only the USA

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#535

Post by Pfeil »

Scea91 wrote: post #526
slightwinder wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear has no relevance in Germany, never really had. The plants barely added any value to the market. When Habeck became Minister, most Nuclear plants were already gone, and the last remaining were phasing out, lacking nuclear fuel and permits. Habeck even gave a permit for the last plants to run some more months, squeezing out even the last parts of fuel as much as they could, just so they could serve as an additi…

Right at this moment Germany's electricity mix has 364gCO2eq/kWh carbon intensity, France is at 21. That is because 37% of Germany's production comes from gas and coal. Even from an environmental standpoint, France is doing much better than Germany and that is thanks to nuclear. Also, by closing operating power plants, Germany weakened European energy production at the time when we geopolitically need it the most. ht…

Still not Habecks legacy. This was decided under Merkel.

Besides, CO2eq are often wrongly measured with nuclear energy, ignoring building emissions and effect on the water temperature in rivers (every summer more and more plants need to shut down because of this), etc. Even if this would be done right, there are again and again longer periods where Germany exports energy to France because their reactors are often in maintenance. In the end I would say it is always a bad idea to rely on only one technology to a large degree. Only a well done mix makes you resiliant.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#536

Post by [deleted] »

tasuki wrote: post #452
pintxo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You loose performance at noon/summer, when you are likely to produce over your demand anyway. But during winter/rainy days, when you are limited to diffuse light, they deliver the same output. The point is that panels are so dead cheap now, that efficiency of orientation is no longer an issue.

Approximately how much does a panel generate from diffuse light compared to direct sunlight?

[deleted]

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#537

Post by qwertox »

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

What his enemies (CDU/AfD) don't mention is that even they wouldn't have been able to undo the stop.

But being in the opposition must be a fun thing since you can say the most beautiful sounding things and never have to actually deliver anything.

AfD even goes a step beyond raw stupidity because they want to destroy all the wind turbines. So not just stop the ones already delivering energy, but destroy them. They just don't realize that we need every bit of energy we can get. They have some donating friends which are against wind turbines, because of the looks.

It was close to funny how Elon Musk held back his disagreement with the AfD regarding their wish to destroy the wind turbines.

I'd go so far as to say that the only reason why Germany has the political and societal problems it has now are only due to the constrain in energy.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#538

Post by pintxo »

tasuki wrote: post #452
pintxo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You loose performance at noon/summer, when you are likely to produce over your demand anyway. But during winter/rainy days, when you are limited to diffuse light, they deliver the same output. The point is that panels are so dead cheap now, that efficiency of orientation is no longer an issue.

Approximately how much does a panel generate from diffuse light compared to direct sunlight?

I‘d say around 10%+.

Over a whole month, peak summer production here is 1.4MWh, winter is 0.14MWh.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#539

Post by martin_a »

kragen wrote: post #96
slow_typist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, the cut of 19% VAT on panels, inverters (which is applicable to any household PV installation, not only on the balcony) are a subsidy but in the meantime prices came down so much that it’s not really relevant anymore. (440 Wp panels go for 60 EURO a piece and a 800 W Hoymiles inverter for around 120 so total subsidy is around 50 EURO.) Other subsidies paid for by the communal bodies are long gone. Cutting the V…

Are those retail prices? Are you buying them in a store, or what? 440Wp/60€ is only 0.136€/Wp, which is higher than the wholesale 0.100€/Wp price reported on Solarserver, but only barely. The word "diffusion" does get used in this way in English, but many native English speakers may be unfamiliar with it.

Panels etc. have become really cheap now: https://www.globus-baumarkt.de/p/schwaiger-balkonkraftwerk-8...

That's 0,38 Euro/W of panel power, including inverter and cable. And there might be a solid price uptick on that because of the shop that's selling it. Wholesale from specialized shops is probably much cheaper...

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#540

Post by p2detar »

paulmist wrote: post #41

Meanwhile China projected to add ~300GW of solar capacity in 2025. Germany renewables capacity for 2023 was 165GW. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/chinas...

China also has 58 nuclear reactors and are currently building 30 more. [0] They are doing everything right to get rid of coal and also become energy independent.

0 - https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/ten-new-reactors...

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