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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

#561

Post by alexey-salmin »

locallost wrote: post #504
alexey-salmin wrote: post #244

It's like the backyard furnaces during the Great Leap Forward. Production of electricity like production of steel makes most economical sense at scale. When the economic policy fails so hard it has to resort to backyard anything you know where it's going.

This comment is so laughably wrong, yet at the same time not funny. Let's do some napkin math: * For the whole package people report 200-300 Euro prices. Let's make it 300. * To get to say 8GW of capacity you'd need 10 million of these units * The price of that ends up being 3 billion * With a capacity factor of 12.5% it will produce electricity like a 1GW source that is constantly producing at full capacity Now let'…

I'm aware of such calculations and they are in disagreement with fundamental limitations of these technologies. Nuclear has EROI of 20-80, solar has something like 3 if you account for inverters and batteries.

The fact that they forgot how to build reactors (France got them at 1.5B per GW adjusted for 2011 prices) and that China burns more and more coal to maintain the solar bubble doesn't change much long term. I don't think the current situation around solar is sustainable.

I could be wrong of course but hopefully we'll live long enough to see the outcome. In the meanwhile I heavily bet on the nuclear being the future.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#562

Post by oceanplexian »

kragen wrote: post #152
oceanplexian wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built one in Utah which is the only part of the US where it's currently legal, so I can give you the numbers. - 4x Hyundai 435W Solar Panels @ 167$ each for $670 total - 1x EcoFlow Stream Microinverter for $257. - Various cables, MC4 crimping kit, etc.. about $150 Grand total was $1077, I set them in direct sun on my patio and have generated 6-8kWh per day. At Utah energy prices (0.12 where I live), they will pay o…

That's fantastic! What's the microinverter's peak capacity?

1.2kW, the same as the max allowed by the H.B. 340 bill they passed.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#563

Post by john61 »

krzyk wrote: post #491
john61 wrote: post #175

I have cut my warm water costs by 80% with balcony solar panels. I have a warm water heating pump with 600 W electrical power. My little server turns it automatically on when the solar access power is greater than 540 W (measured by the smart meter). This generates usually enough warm water for our household. Also the solar panels cover to idle power of the house of 50-100 W very easily during daytime. This pays off…

How do you connect that? I assume balcony solar panels provide you with a power socket. How do you connect all the appliances in house to that socket(s)? Isn't it a lot of cabling?

The solar panels are connected to a converter which is connected to the normal grid with a standard plug.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#564

Post by john61 »

vixen99 wrote: post #206
john61 wrote: post #175

I have cut my warm water costs by 80% with balcony solar panels. I have a warm water heating pump with 600 W electrical power. My little server turns it automatically on when the solar access power is greater than 540 W (measured by the smart meter). This generates usually enough warm water for our household. Also the solar panels cover to idle power of the house of 50-100 W very easily during daytime. This pays off…

Yes, but where do you live?

Austria

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#565

Post by runeks »

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…

> If it saves 10% per month on my bill (7 euro), this would earn itself back within 3 years.

Where are you getting these figures from? Is it realistic to expect it to cover 5-10% of your usage?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#566

Post by mrguyorama »

myrmidon wrote: post #514
flohofwoe wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything has become clear in the last couple of years is that Russia doesn't act rationally, and their government lies as soon as they open their mouths. E.g trying to explain Russia's actions with 'reason' is just a waste of time. Also: "if you want peace, prepare for war" has never been more true than now, as sad as that is.

I honestly don't think the Ukraine invasion was that irrational. Russia had previous success (with managable pushback) annexing Crimea (and the Chechen wars before). Things just went south really hard this time and now they're kinda stuck, just like France/Germany in WW1 or the US in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Writing off a lost war effort is also much harder for a totalitarian regime, because you are not gambling with…

The Ukraine War became irrational the day after it started.

The entire war was planned as "It will be over in 3 days, we will accomplish all our objectives trivially, it will be a massive gain". There was never even an idea in the Kremlin that it would be anything other than a milk run, no contingency plan for if Ukraine fought back at all.

Russia did not even take control over hundreds of billions of dollars of cash reserves in foreign banks that they expected to be part of their war chest, and which were frozen early on.

Then they failed to take Hostomel airport, failed to be welcomed by the population, and their invasion column was an abysmal, laughable even, execution on whatever plan they had.

From that moment on, there was no "Success" option. It's geopolitical sunk cost fallacy.

Russia did not plan on losing over 4000 tanks! Russia did not plan on throwing away most of their Soviet inheritance and outright emptying all the storage yards for old tanks! They did not plan on causing the outright or near extinction of several entire types of Soviet military vehicle! They have lost 8000 IFVs! They definitely did not plan or want to lose several irreplaceable strategic aircraft, including multiple EWACS type aircraft that they didn't have a lot of in the first place, and again, irreplaceable.

Russia did not plan to have 30% of their fuel refining infrastructure damaged by a neighbor without a serious air force! Russia did not plan to have an attempted coup that was well on its way to Moscow. Russia did not plan on having most of its industry hampered by foreign export controls and limits.

Russia most certainly did not plan on having to beg and trade North Korea for a few million artillery shells, and they did not plan on having the Flagship of the Black Sea fleet sunk by a country who scuttled their navy months earlier!

If Ukraine rolled over and willingly submitted to total control today, including the actual populace (instead of resisting), Russia would still be utterly fucked for decades to come.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#567

Post by nmehner »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #482
Archelaos wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear technology is a dead end. Renewables and saving energy is the future. Nuclear and fossil are in the same boat. They are both more risky and have huge hidden costs that the general public and future generations will have to bear. The only good reason to go nuclear these days is if you want the bomb, like Iran. Interestingly, it is the same people who supported fossil in the past who are still promoting nuclear…

Nuclear and intermitent energy sources have no place in the same sentence. Germany didn't avoid nuclear by switching to renewables. It does so by burning coal and building gas-fired power plants. How to manage a grid fully on intermitent power sources is an open question. There is at this point in time no answer to this. At the moment, Germany fires up extremely dirty power generation capacity every time there is a s…

On short sightedness: https://www.dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-5...

"Several commentators, business leaders and academics have identified that 1970 deal as a significant fork in the road of the Cold War, as it established a mutual basis for economic cooperation between Russia and western Europe." There are certainly different opinions on that. Gas imports started long ago and in the cold war that approach was working to some extend.

Only 13% of gas is actually used for electricity ("Stromversorgung"): https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/erdgas-absatz... most of it was used as cheap energy source for chemical plants and other industry.

> Germany didn't avoid nuclear by switching to renewables. It does so by burning coal and building gas-fired power plants.

That statement is plain wrong: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE... In 2013 about 300TWh of electricity came from fossil fuels, 92TWh from nuclear. In 2024 153TWh from fossil fuels and 0 from nuclear. So fossil fuels declined by 147TWh while nuclear only by 92TWh. Claiming that fossil fuels replaced nuclear is ridiculous, even after repeating it hundreds of times.

You can claim that keeping nuclear could have sped up the transition, but the inflexible nuclear plants could also have prevented people from investing in renewables, since the economics are worse if there is energy that is supplied permanently regardless of the price. Nuclear and renewables don't mix well.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#568

Post by jagermo »

kharak wrote: post #552
jagermo wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, in Germany, issue number 1 is the grid, especially in Bavaria. Politicians were just asleep or did not care. For example, there is a super interesting agri PV installation in the Hallertau, where they grow most of the hops for beer. The farmer built and payed it himself and its a commercial trial instead of a public testrun. He lost about 20 percent of the hop compared to the non-pv areas; however, the money…

To add to this, I know person a farmer who wanted to use part of his farmland for solar panels. The project failed. Reasons: lack of power grid connection, no one wanted to takeover the costs for added capacity; and local resistance from residents. „I want to see the nature in front of my home“ is all what’s needed to fail consent.

i don't understand those nimbys. With solar, its crazy! The soil will regenerate and you'll probably get more nature than before, especially if the farmers use sheep to mow it. That's why we can't have nice things.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#569

Post by SJC_Hacker »

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…

Grid power and LNG use wasn't very fungible. e.g., if you have a gas furnace, electricity costs being low doesn't help you unless you replace the gas furnace with electric. In the short term, very expensive.

Same goes for alot of industry, there also were industrial processes that BASF et al. were running that just required LNG as a reagant.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#570

Post by jillesvangurp »

runeks wrote: post #565
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…

> If it saves 10% per month on my bill (7 euro), this would earn itself back within 3 years. Where are you getting these figures from? Is it realistic to expect it to cover 5-10% of your usage?

It's relative to my cited bill of about 70 euro, obviously.

7/30 ~= 22 cents. Or about half a kwh per day here in Germany. Per day. I think that should be feasible with a well positioned panel. You might do better on sunny days. But if you balance that against all the lesser days, I don't think it's a strange average. All back of the envelope of course. If you get six sun hours on your 800w setup, you get almost 5 kwh. That's sort of the upper range probably. Maybe on really well positioned panels you might get 10 sun hours in the summer months. Or 8 kwh. I think few people would get that.

But an average 0.5kwh per day is fairly modest and adds up to about 7 euro per month. Probably too conservative but that was on purpose. I think the official figures project higher yields.

Since setups are capped at 800w, the percentage depends on your monthly usage. Easier to work in absolute numbers. I think most people could shave between 7 and 20 euros per month off their bills depending on how much sun they manage to get on their panels.

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