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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

#641

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

nmehner wrote: post #612
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…

The long term strategy is H2: https://h2-global.org/the-h2global-instrument/ And gas plants are what is closed to H2 and can be switched over easiest. But H2 is only viable once renewable production exceeds demands during long stretches of time. Otherwise it is always better to use the energy directly or use short term storage (batteries) which are also growing exponentially: https://battery-charts.de/battery-charts/…

H2 has been the alleged long term solution for decades while barely progressing at all. Even in aviation where it’s seemingly the only solution we have, it’s stagnating.

If you look at who is pushing H2, you will see that it’s mostly fossil fuel companies who want to prop up gas because as you rightfully pointed out "And gas plants are what is closed to H2 and can be switched over easiest."

> So what? That what a grid is for.

It’s going to be hard to reach net zero while burning coal and if the actual solution is importing nuclear energy from somewhere else while pretending it doesn’t happen, it would be simpler to just straight up go for nuclear.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#642

Post by chickenbig »

benjiro wrote: post #590
chickenbig wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those 3 plants had been running on "deferred maintenance" as the plant shutdown was planned years ago. They had > 95.4% unit capability factor in 2022 per https://pris.iaea.org/pris/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsUnitCapab... . It doesn't sound like they were being run into the ground, rather things were operating very efficiently. > Keeping the plants open will have resulted in a ton of money to maintain the safety of th…

> They had > 95.4% unit capability factor That is not the issue. Let me give you a example. Belgium decided to extend the life on several nuclear reactors, that originally had plans for decommissioning. So they started to do actual deep maintenance for the extended life. Then they ran into issues of cracks in the concrete, issues with cracks in metal storage tanks, and a whole lot of other issues. Reactors down for a…

> The extension of the German reactors was estimated at 3B+ if i remember correctly. And that does not include if any issues are found.

https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/reports/restarting-german... is for restarting the German reactors, with buckets of < 1B EUR and < 3B EUR for quicker restarts.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#643

Post by karpik »

flohofwoe wrote: post #614
karpik wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I find you from another topic (about speed of js/rust calls, im really curious about best effective way of wasm 3d app with additional raycasting, etc) However I couldnt ignore this topic since im from Voronezh, Russia. Totally agree about government’s lies and impulsiveness, however: - when they say “X is what totally not gonna happen” actually they introduce X event to the news so 99.99% it is gonna happen lat…

> russia had a deal for nato not to get close to its borders This deal doesn't exist, at least anywhere on paper. There is an obligation related to the reunification of Germany that no NATO troops are stationed on the territory of former East Germany which has been honored by the reunited Germany. Countries are also not forced into NATO, they ask to join. > USSR, and Russia asked to get in NATO a few times and got pr…

about NATO expansion you’re right, never thought there is no public document, the only thing I found (looks not legit at all but it’s clear what’s government propaganda have in mind https://rg.ru/amp/2022/02/18/der-spiegel-obnaruzhen-dokument... )

Just before Ukraine invasion Zelensky speak up about cancelling Budapest memorandum https://amp.rbc.ru/rbcnews/politics/19/02/2022/621108ac9a794... That’s not a first time Ukraine presidents discuss this, but that timing was tough.

About Russia - NATO membership: western media hold narrative “in 1990s Russia was close – in 2007 Putin declared independent way of using energy and army resources”, but I find this 2001 Bush reaction humiliating (reasons unknown, pure subjective observation) https://youtu.be/x7kkRkWbIzI?si=LBhci7V_qdWDBDT9

Putin says he saw some secret KGB documents about the whole east-west situation when he became a president, idk if that’s legit at all.

I can only add up to the topic that in 90s almost all oil/gas in Russia was exported by western companies, and only in 2002 all sources became formerly owned by russian companies and citizens. As for now 20% Rosneft still held by BP Russian Investments Limited.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#644

Post by tdiff »

Beginning with

> “Even if we attached panels to all suitable balconies across the country, we’d still only manage to meet 1 percent or less of our overall energy needs,”

the article concludes that the most prominent effect of balcony panels is of psychological nature.

At best it pays out in 5 years. Our landlord, for example, requires the panel to be installed by certified professionals, hence it will take even longer to break even, even assuming the device will not malfunction during the time, which I am sceptical about, especially when talking about the cheapest sets from amazon/kaufland.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#645

Post by nebula8804 »

slow_typist wrote: post #496
nebula8804 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that is pretty good, lines up pretty nicely with the approx monetary break even as well. Impressive! Wonder if there is anything that can be done to lengthen the life of the panel as much as possible. I've read elsewhere that solar panels have a theoretical lifespan of 25 years with the panels slowly degrading and not failing all at once. I dont know if these specific panels are different but I wonder if the pane…

Degradation is more or less solved. Producers guarantee a maximum of .4 % power degradation per year for 25 or even 30 years. That may be offset buy rising energy costs alone. May be not if someone manages to producer cheaper batteries. Right now owners of older rooftop photovoltaics in Germany swap functioning modules for newer ones with better efficiency. Even if some small percentage of older modules fails it is p…

Wonder of those old panels can be sold or shipped to developing countries if no one in the west wants them. It will be like old mercedes, they can be rusted to the core, they still end up having a second, third and fourth life in Africa.

Solar is one of those magical technologies that seems to keep giving in different ways.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#646

Post by AtlasBarfed »

kragen wrote: post #179
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are deaths per megawatt really better if one looks at total infrastructure deaths from transmission wires and the like?

I think the answer is that they are, because there aren't that many infrastructure deaths. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK448087/ says that in the US, where the statistics are best, "electrical injuries cause approximately 1000 deaths annually. Of these, around 400 result from high-voltage electrical injuries, while lightning accounts for 50 to 300 deaths." That's 400 deaths per year from high-voltage transmis…

Secondary question, is rooftop solar installation any different in danger than housing construction or other equivalent blue collar construction jobs that people will fill anyway?

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#647

Post by geor9e »

kragen wrote: post #592
ssl-3 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? Which part is it that you think I may have misunderstood? What problem (or solution) is the concern, here?

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…

"A hypothetical microinverter" could contain plastic explosives rigged to blow up your house. Hypotheticals are fine but to be clear you've drifted away from the topic - balcony solar panels with built-in microinverters, purpose built with arc and grid detection mechanisms. But yes do not rig a car inverter to your home outlets.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#648

Post by itsme0000 »

tomhow wrote: post #513
itsme0000 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We don't remove comments. Comments that are sufficiently bad get flagged by the community, and if there are enough flags, a comment is killed, which happened to that one.

Ok how many pro- sub stack posts do I need to make so my multiple accounts get the ability to flag stuff? Only kidding but don’t give me that BS.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#649

Post by twixfel »

tfourb wrote: post #578
p2detar wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I like the guy but compare the electricity prices in Germany to other European states, and also to China and the US. It’s about $0.15 kWh in the US vs $0.40 kWh in Germany. I personally think this is absolutely insane, but I don’t blame Habeck but the poor renewables transition execution in Germany. It is currently a failure in terms of electricity consumer prices. Edit: I just rechecked China and wow! $0.08 pe…

The average wholesale price for electricity in 2024 was close to 0.09 €/kwh. The consumer price is about 0.3 €/kwh currently, depending on the deals you are getting. The difference between wholesale and consumer price is made up of transmission costs, taxes and markups of various middlemen. Shutting down nuclear power had 0 impact on electricity prices, as wholesale prices are set by the most expensive producer neede…

That doesn’t really ring remotely true.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#650

Post by tfourb »

twixfel wrote: post #649
tfourb wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average wholesale price for electricity in 2024 was close to 0.09 €/kwh. The consumer price is about 0.3 €/kwh currently, depending on the deals you are getting. The difference between wholesale and consumer price is made up of transmission costs, taxes and markups of various middlemen. Shutting down nuclear power had 0 impact on electricity prices, as wholesale prices are set by the most expensive producer neede…

That doesn’t really ring remotely true.

What doesn't? You can check all of this with a simple web search.
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