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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

#631

Post by kragen »

ssl-3 wrote: post #626
kragen wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hypothetical microinverter is completely capable of kickstarting the "grid" within a single house. You can try it yourself: get a 2000-watt car inverter, connect it to a car battery, turn off your house's main circuit breaker, and plug a suicide cord (male to male) between the car inverter and one of your house's outlets. The electrical appliances in your house will work fine unless one of them starts trying to dra…

The grid-tied microinverter cannot do this on its own. It is incapable. A person can add other things to the scenario and the microinverter may elect to play ball, but it is simply incapable of kickstarting bloody anything on its own. Are there any other wildly imaginative corner cases you'd like to explore that have nothing at all to do with balcony solar, as it is implemented in Germany?

I was rebutting your incorrect assertion in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487471 about what hypothetical microinverters were or were not "utterly incapable" of. The comment you have just posted is irrelevant to that.

The design features of currently existing microinverters are irrelevant to hedora's point about what microinverters could be designed to do, except insofar as they constitute an existence proof. (Obviously something is possible if it's already being done, but the inverse is not true.)

Furthermore, unsafely plugging your house wiring into a cheap generator or car inverter isn't a "wildly imaginative corner case", it's a common enough practice that there are YouTube videos warning people against doing it, because it's unsafe and in most places illegal, and also explaining how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kjpS1vfGio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiicSQZqGd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIhzy6hfvyM as well as safer approaches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydRveyXkf4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmmhOXsIRjw

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#632

Post by Tepix »

pyrale wrote: post #475
Tepix wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why it is a bad investment? These 800W of solar pay for themselves within 3 years usually.

They pay for themeslves when compared to your bill prices. They absolutely don't pay for themselves when compared with actual market prices for electricity generation. Your bill is priced that way so that you can have predictable price for what you consume. That means sometimes markets electricity at zero, but you'll pay the full contract price. Other times, electricity is _much_ more expensive than your contract, an…

Perhaps as a consumer i don't want the risk of these fluctuating prices. See what happened in Texas…

That said, I do have 2kWh of battery for my balcony solar (it cost only a few hundred euros and prices are coming down even further), so I can spread the usage of the generated power over a longer timespan, not just during peak sunshine.

Of course, balcony solar is only for small installations. For home owners, you'll probably want something like 10+ kWp of solar panels and 10+ kWh of battery. Both of which are no longer very expensive(§). Once enough households have this, we only need those gas power stations for those rather rare periods where there is neither wind nor sun. We can also use EVs as batteries for the grid once V2G finally arrives (that's something the big utilities are stalling).

--

(§) See what CATL is doing: $40 per kWh in the near future: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2025/08/catl-sodium-ion-batter...

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#633

Post by pyrale »

Tepix wrote: post #632
pyrale wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pay for themeslves when compared to your bill prices. They absolutely don't pay for themselves when compared with actual market prices for electricity generation. Your bill is priced that way so that you can have predictable price for what you consume. That means sometimes markets electricity at zero, but you'll pay the full contract price. Other times, electricity is _much_ more expensive than your contract, an…

Perhaps as a consumer i don't want the risk of these fluctuating prices. See what happened in Texas… That said, I do have 2kWh of battery for my balcony solar (it cost only a few hundred euros and prices are coming down even further), so I can spread the usage of the generated power over a longer timespan, not just during peak sunshine. Of course, balcony solar is only for small installations. For home owners, you'll…

I am not blaming you as an agent in this system, trying to optimize your bill. You probably made the right choice for yourself.

What I'm saying is that the consequence of your action will be to rise the price electricity for those without a balcony (that includes industrial users), which is a very bad systemic outcome. This outcome should have been avoided by system-wide policymaking, not by a selfless act from you.

> that's something the big utilities are stalling

V2G is an extremely complex thing to set up in reality, you don't need a conspiracy to explain why it's not around the corner. Just like you don't need to involve big oil to explain why fusion power is likely not happening tomorrow.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#634

Post by Tepix »

pyrale wrote: post #633
Tepix wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps as a consumer i don't want the risk of these fluctuating prices. See what happened in Texas… That said, I do have 2kWh of battery for my balcony solar (it cost only a few hundred euros and prices are coming down even further), so I can spread the usage of the generated power over a longer timespan, not just during peak sunshine. Of course, balcony solar is only for small installations. For home owners, you'll…

I am not blaming you as an agent in this system, trying to optimize your bill. You probably made the right choice for yourself. What I'm saying is that the consequence of your action will be to rise the price electricity for those without a balcony (that includes industrial users), which is a very bad systemic outcome. This outcome should have been avoided by system-wide policymaking, not by a selfless act from you.…

What about cheap batteries?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#635

Post by tasuki »

pintxo wrote: post #538
tasuki wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks. That's not great: I need more energy in winter...

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#636

Post by JamisonM »

V__ wrote: post #508
JamisonM wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Except the shutdown had no negative effect." Three things here: * Didn't the diversion of natural gas to electricity generation end some German industrial production completely? * Are there not large electricity subsidies in place via subsidies for US imported LNG? * Isn't the alternate reality where there is a surplus of electricity in German due to nuclear power a better world where Germany has more opportunity? (…

* I would have dig deeper on that, but regarding the timeframe when the shutdown occurred, there wasn't a big effect on gas prices. That happened before due to the war with Ukraine and the reliance on Russian gas in general. [1] The idea once was to use cheap gas from Russia and at the same time build out renewables. The latter didn't happen, resulting in the mess Germany is right now. * There were multiple tax reduc…

Fair enough on the immediate consequences.. but shutting down these plants was a long term decision, so the long term consequences are still consequences. It is certainly true that no one predicted a Russian invasion of Ukraine when Fukushima happened but Germany's over-reliance on Russian gas was well understood at the time. Which I raise only to point out that the bad things that did happen were foreseeable, the German energy system was subject to systemic risks and those risks were made worse by these choices.

It seems like the statement "No negative effect" is probably not well supported by subsequent events.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#637

Post by DasIch »

rasz wrote: post #627
DasIch wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current state wrt to nuclear in Germany reflects a decades long consensus in Germany that spans the majority of the population, scientists, intellectuals, politicians and even energy companies. Any opposition you do hear on this from within Germany is usually opportunistic. People are against the Greens so they just take the opposite position on their policy. A good example of this is Markus Söder (CSU) who flip…

russians paid good money for this consensus! Best Chancellor money could buy. It was so successful Germany became a proxy paying French NGOs to torpedo French Nuclear program! Anti-nuclear lobbying by German foundations in France and Poland https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-00217... Edit: Actually should be plural - Chancellors. Merkel, big cog in NordStreams, went on some podcast last week to bl…

The anti-nuclear movement in Germany started in the 70s. The last nuclear power plant was built decades ago. In my opinion the decision to not invest into nuclear and scale it up further made the end of nuclear power inevitable.

Recent governments merely organized a shutdown that was effectively decided in the last century at the end of the cold war. The importance of Merkel, Fukushima etc. in these discussions are completely overrated imo.

As an aside Germany got fuel for nuclear reactors from Russia.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#638

Post by pyrale »

Tepix wrote: post #634
pyrale wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not blaming you as an agent in this system, trying to optimize your bill. You probably made the right choice for yourself. What I'm saying is that the consequence of your action will be to rise the price electricity for those without a balcony (that includes industrial users), which is a very bad systemic outcome. This outcome should have been avoided by system-wide policymaking, not by a selfless act from you.…

What about cheap batteries?

Cheap anything is great.

Aside from that, that would probably require a complete change in the way Germany subsidizes its energy sector, and probably harm to some private companies that benefits from these private companies. I don't really see it happening soon, but who knows?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#639

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

rcxdude wrote: post #606
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are entirely missing the point. The issue is what do you do when you have no renewable because it’s the winter and there is no sun and no wind. German answer to that - like it or not - is building gas fired power plants and using coal in the meanwhile. That and buying a ton of nuclear energy from France a fact you are conveniently forgetting. The ratios you quote are meaningless. The issue is that it can’t scale…

'no sun and no wind' is not actually a thing that happens. What happens is less sun during the day and more or less wind in different places in Europe. This is a problem that can be solved through a combination of excess capacity, long distance transmission of energy, and storage, affordably and with existing technology. It's been obvious for a long time that a fully renewable grid can work, and Europe is rapidly mov…

> It's been obvious for a long time that a fully renewable grid can work

It’s far from obvious to me.

There are literally no exemple of one ever running and some of the technological challenges are still open questions at the moment.

I generally think proponents of renewables are overselling the idea and significantly minimising the challenges they pose at scale. They definitely have a place in the energy mix but I don’t personally believe they are the solution.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#640

Post by defrost »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #639
rcxdude wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'no sun and no wind' is not actually a thing that happens. What happens is less sun during the day and more or less wind in different places in Europe. This is a problem that can be solved through a combination of excess capacity, long distance transmission of energy, and storage, affordably and with existing technology. It's been obvious for a long time that a fully renewable grid can work, and Europe is rapidly mov…

> It's been obvious for a long time that a fully renewable grid can work It’s far from obvious to me. There are literally no exemple of one ever running and some of the technological challenges are still open questions at the moment. I generally think proponents of renewables are overselling the idea and significantly minimising the challenges they pose at scale. They definitely have a place in the energy mix but I d…

Mostly renewable has already been achieved, 100% renewable is on track and economically feasible.

   In December 2021, South Australia set a new record for renewable energy generation and resilience, after running entirely on renewable energy for 6.5 consecutive days.

  In 2022, it was stated that South Australia could soon be powered by only renewable energy.

  70 per cent of South Australia's electricity is generated from renewable sources.

  This is projected to be 85 per cent by 2026, with a target of 100 per cent by 2027.
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_South_Australia
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