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 saves 10% per month on my bill (7 euro), this would earn itself back within 3 years. At 5% it's 6 years. Not bad for something that costs next to nothing and is pretty much plug and play. You are not going to get very rich from this obviously. But it's kind of cool. Too bad my balcony faces east and is mostly covered by the shadow of other buildings. I can barely grow plants there.
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.
Sorry but Merkel reached almost 50% of energy production with renewables. Germany was already a leader in 2021-2022 with almost 45-50%.
The idea was to grow "sustainably", and in fact it was functioning.
Even the "original" GEG comes from Merkel who was slowly pushing for a change.
Then somehow someone decided they had to restrict and punish and this was our "undeserved" Habeck and friends.
There was no need at all to disrupt the country into what it has become today.
Literally everyone said that. Only the Scholz/Greens government didn't see that.
EDIT: in fact, if we just reverted the commits to pre-2022 we'd be already in a better situation. No new changes. Just start from what was working. And well, keep the new solar panel stuff for balconies. It seems a nice idea (which a lot of countries are doing anyways, so nothing so innovative here).
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.
This is a bit strong, given that you still need to register with the Marktstammdatenregister and get a permit from your landlord (relevant bc homeownership rate < 50%).
I think the high electricity cost has as much to do with the relative success of this than the reduced friction.
On the technical side you are also limited to 800W max and if you want a battery things get complicated quickly. I will still get one probably but it is far from no bureaucracy at all and plug and play - at least not when you want a battery.
Marktstammdatenregister is online and very easy to do, Allowance from landlord is more of a formality now as they can't really deny it. Of course some try but the law is pretty clear here.
A big factor in the quick return (and maybe one reason for its popularity) is that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world. The ROI doesn't look as attractive in France, the US or Norway.
> A big factor in the quick return (and maybe one reason for its popularity) is that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world.
Part of that is because our method of pricing is different than it is in the rest of the world.
It doesn't matter if you got a 3x50A or 3x200A three phase service, only during construction (because a 3x200A uplink will obviously be a decent bit pricier), the monthly fee is the same and very low (I think ~15€ a month). All other costs are rolled into the per-kWh price, making it appear much more expensive than in other countries. On top of that we have a ridiculous tax load because large industry is exempt from a lot of things and consumers gotta pick up the slack.
In contrast, Italians for example pay fees based on capacity which means a home there will usually have 3x10A uplink, something greatly troubling EV adoption and moving off of natural gas [1].
Additionally, Germany is one pricing zone whereas ENTSO-E, the European Commission and the Northern German population would rather like to have two or three pricing zones, given that there is a serious lack of North->South transmission capacity, but our "beloved" Bavarian prime minister Söder plus his green counterpart in BaWü Kretschmann both try to prevent that as much as possible because it would send prices in the south skyrocketing [2].
Norway: yes, they are doing fine (80% EV, btw, so it seems you can actually use EVs in colder weather... I think the nordics are actually way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to sustainable energy creation, with norway getting about 90% last year from Hydro - super impressive. https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway
France: I think they might turn around, because their low prices are tied to massive subsidies (that are scheduled to end in part end of 2025). And, France has the weather and sun to be even more successfull. That would however mean a decentralization of the power grid and probably storage solutions (batteries, hydro or h2), something thats complicated and not sexy to sell to the public - one of the reasons Germany is so far behind. Our grid is stuck in the past and enough company lobby politicians to keep it that way.
US: it is probably less of a pricing issue and more a topic of resiliance and stabilizing the power grid. It looks like rolling blackouts in the US get more, especially during the summer months (where solar could directly be used for the AC). https://urbanclimate.gatech.edu/current-projects/blackout-tr...
I think it would especially make sense to run your AC on if you have a flexible plan - i remember so many stories of people suddenly having to pay thousands during peak times in summer.
California, Texas and most of the rust belt does have enough solar to easily get by, especially if you add a battery backup.
And it barely works out in Germany. I did the math for my small city flat with a small south facing balcony and got a realistic payback period of 6 years.
The issue is not solar per se, but that tiny installations are not very efficient. It'd make much more sense to bolster funding for building sized installations.
Balcony solar is likely to make this worse, given Germany has low/zero electricity market prices when the sun shines.
Balcony solar production means Germans don't buy solar from their utility when utility costs are low, and they do want to buy some when utility costs are high.
Unsurprisingly, fixed contract prices are bound to be an average of electricity price at different times. With balcony solar, the times where it costs the least will be weighted less in the average, so contract price is bound to go up.
I pay 13 cents a kWh here in Canada. I got a 7.8kw system on the roof, payback will be 6-7 years, then I get $1000 of free electricity a year for the life of the system.
I’m in a tight valley where it snows a ton
Also got an interest free loan from the gov to cover the outlay.
That is definitely a factor. But depending on your energy usage and how smart your home appliances are, you can save a lot more than 10%. I.e. if you run all your washing and most of the heating of the water tank during your own generation times you can potentially save quite a lot more than 10%.
Electricity costs 24c per kwh in France and I just checked and can get it for 23c. So it's not true any more. Once you factor in that one is financed by the state and the other is not, it was likely never true. Germany's expensive electricity is a myth.
This is not necessarily a disadvantage. If you have a contract with pricing based on the 15-minute intervals of the day-ahead market ("dynamischer Stromtarif"), then the electricity price spikes in the morning and evening. Typically with such a contract, you also get this higher price for injecting power back into the grid. And the price will almost always be lower than a traditional contract outside of these spikes.
A vertically oriented panel is also ideal for this scenario, because the sun will be low above the horizon when the panel is producing power in the morning.
edit: after looking into a bit more, it seems in Germany you may not actually get dynamic feed-in pricing. Too bad. I assumed that this was the case, because it works like that here in Belgium.
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.
"SUNNIVA 920 W Balcony Power Station BIFAZIAL Full Black Complete Socket TSUN 800 W Inverter, PV Solar System, 2 x 460 W Glass/Glass Solar Modules, Includes 5 m Cable, Bluetooth WiFi, Complete Set"
Literally the first result that comes back for "balcony solar panel kit". 239 Euros with 4.2 star rating and > 200 purchase in the last month.
I can't vouch for this brand or kit but that's what comes up on top on amazon.de. Looks like some Chinese manufacturer, as you would expect. Plenty of pretty positive reviews in German with a few deployment photos. There are indeed a lot of solar panel related products on Amazon. It seems to be a popular product category.
You might get different results from outside Germany.
Some people laugh at the 800W output.
However, in Indonesia, roughly half of the 300 million people live in homes with an electricity capacity of 900W or less.
Wish these kind of panels were available at that price here. We have pretty much 12 hours of sunlight every single day but household solar panel is discouraged by the state owned utilities.
To be sure, when talking about solar panels, 800W is the nominal/nameplate capacity. That's how much it generates when conditions are perfect and the sun is shining straight down on them. Most of the time an 800W installation will produce rather less than that.
You'd need rather more panels (and/or some combination with batteries) to hit 900W output constantly. (on the other hand, do you need 900W constantly, or is that peak usage? A battery might be able to handle that.) That said, solar panels are probably a lot more efficient in Indonesia than they are in Germany. Since you're in/near the tropics, perhaps 1500-2000W nameplate capacity could cover your 900W? See if you can get a local expert do the maths for you.
As a data point, 200-300W is enough to heat a 35m2 wooden house to 20°C with a heat pump, in Poland, so with external temperatures normally between -5°C and 15°C.
The awesome part is you can circumvent the 800W. First you can legally install 2000W solar panels, making 800W output much more likely. The 800W is only how much you can feed back into the grid. Second you can install one or more batteries and feed devices from them, further increasing the usable energy.
Is it discouraged so hard that you can't get it at all? I'd think it would be pretty hard to keep people from importing solar panels from Vietnam or Thailand—although of course you'd probably have to put it somewhere that surveillance drones could see it, if you want it to get any sun. (In that case, if you have a rooftop, maybe you could put it under a frosted-glass skylight.)
If anything, I'd expect the prices to be lower. Do you have a local Indonesian equivalent of eBay like we do here in Argentina? Or, just eBay?
I assume "electricity capacity of 900W" means that the wires from the transformer (and in the walls) are only rated for 4 amps at 230VAC. This means that you can't really run a 2000-watt air conditioner at all. Whereas, with an 800-watt solar panel charging a battery, you can run a 2000-watt air conditioner 40% of the time when the panel is in full sun. Washing machines and refrigerators are an even bigger difference, since they usually have huge peaks of current draw when they start up their motors, but relatively low average power. So the solar panels may actually be a much bigger boon than simply comparing 800 to 900 makes it sound like. A single car battery can typically source 6000 watts for brief periods of time.
https://www.tokopedia.com/ is the Indonesian Amazon. You can get everything it seems, also grid-tied inverters, but the prices are higher than in Europe from a quick check. Probably import taxes.
What do you mean by 'that price'? Are there heavy import tariffs or another artificial reason why you can't order from the same chinese manufacturers as germany does?
I would have thought that the issue is purchasing power inequality between germany and indonesia, not that they're not available globally at a similar price
Some countries with state gas or utility monopoly will ensure legislation blocks solar power. Example Thailand has huge solar potential but cheap gas, so they block solar panel installations
Yes, there is inequality as can be seen in Pakistan. But once restrictions are dropped the solar panels take off.
The sunlight is going to follow a bell curve. Assume 800W at noon, and pessimistically approximate the curve with a triangle. That’s 400W * 12 hours. That’s 4.8 kwh per day.
If your house is provisioned for 900W peak, you aren’t running a furnace, a/c, electric heat, or an EV. 4.8 kWh will go a long way in those circumstances. (It’d handle a fridge or two if you could time shift the power, or got one that’s designed to hold cold over night with no power)
I don’t think you strictly need utility approvals to install balcony solar. Usually, you can either not wire them into the house at all, or have a switch to switch the house between grid and solar. (It’s better to back feed into the grid, but that requires utility cooperation. If properly installed the switch I describe is safe but maybe illegal.)
Legality can be a funny thing. Governments can make anything they want illegal. Here in Argentina it's illegal to import used capital equipment that hasn't been refurbished by the original manufacturer or to import maps that say that the Malvinas Islands aren't part of Argentina. In Thailand it's illegal to step on paper currency because the king's face is on it.
Thinking about my home (in the UK) the "worst offenders" seem to be things that heat things, washing machine when it's heating water (~2.5kW), electric oven (~2-4kW), kettle (~1-2kW), electric heater (1-2kW).
Outside of those, we could have most other things on in the house and not be using much more than 1kW, though granted I've been very intentional with electrical efficiency with the electrical and electronic devices in our home (by UK standards).
Heating is always the culprit (or cooling but that's less of an issue in our area).
But one thing to realize is that the industry was just lazy and none of this is actually "needs" a full electric line.
- You don't need actual heat for washing clothes if you using washing detergent. There are no real simple "machines" available as far as I know, except simple camping washing machines
- A rice cooker can work from as low as 250w. I have a "cooking" option in mine drawing 500w taking no longer than the usual 2000w plate (better isolation, optimized heat transfer, ...) to get water cooking.
- Heaters are difficult, I've tried a lot of electric options and they all draw a lot of power when you heat something like 20°C over the outside temperature. However ex. "Ecomat 2000" (small ceramic heater) can easily heat a average room at 450 watts.
One way to get warm and way lower wattage is heating blankets. From 50 - 100w usually on for 50% you get very far with little power.
Not sure if that helps anyone. But I spent a lot of time researching efficient caravan alternatives.
Most powerful draw is going to be on heating and cooling things which can also be done using gas. Is Indonesia using a lot of gas (or even wood) or they just not cooking?
Kerosene cookers are still very popular in Indonesia, or gas from portable bottles. I've not seen gas refrigerators, but maybe some people also have them.
The real output is probably 200-250 W in perfect conditions. It just points to how insanely expensive German electricity is after they decided to commit the double suicide of ditching nuclear and Russian gas.
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 in a few years and it reduces my carbon footprint and that of my neighbors.
The hybrid (heat-pump & heat-elements, both) water heater I installed 2 years ago has already paid for itself in savings. This design literally pulls the heat out of your conditioned space, providing both cooling and dehumidification (I live in a humid temperate rainforest so win-win). <3% of my annual electric usage goes to my water heater (typically 10%+).
During the brief winter months I just set it to heating elements only, and it behaves like a traditional watertank heater (i.e. doesn't cool house in the winter, using only resistive heating).
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?
Well, the person you are replying to is in a thread about Germany, mentions balcony solar and said "my little server turns it automatically on" (which is how you would construct that sentence in German instead of "turns it on automatically"), so my wild guess would be Germany. ;)
> Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels
A more fitting title would be "Germany's citizens outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels". The current phrasing makes it sound like it's somehow a thing done by the government, which is not the case. If anything the government is one of the many forces slowing down this progress. And yes, I am aware of things like grid security and stability being a concern. I am not complaining.
Given that these things are usually hindered by the government's bureaucracy, maybe the best title would be "Germany's government removes obstacles preventing residents from outfitting..."
Electricity is so expensive in Germany, that these things pay for themselves in a couple of years - you are theoretically right, but as things are, these make financial sense.
Unless it is related to weapons or the project that will ultimately benefit big corps, project will not work out using central government policy. With revolving doors and sophisticated lobbing, at this point government seems just like different side of the same coin as big corp.
Things can really only be DONE on the grass root local level.
Edit: actually even some of the weapons projects are not working out so well.
There's nits on your nits: most residents (citizen or otherwise) don't own their properties; and while these things do work with houses, they are intended for apartments.
Most of them are installed by tenants. Who also aren't all citizens, so you aren't wrong there. Maybe "Germany's resident's" would be more accurate, but of course some small percentage will be installed by landlords who actually reside abroad. You will never get that title to be 100% accurate
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.
It is! Their biggest solar farms are also in the Inner Mongolia where the irradiance is twice what you get in Germany. That said the sheer scale is crazy!
Great idea! Want to learn more on the safety though...
> Once in place, people simply plug a micro-inverter into an available wall outlet.
later
>Gründinger and experts at the German Solar Industry Association noted that the devices don’t generate enough power to strain the grid, and their standardized design and safety features allow them to integrate into balconies smoothly and easily.
This seem to talk to the safety of the grid and the balcony. What is done when electricians power down the apartment or worse, the building to work on something? The wires remain energized despite proper distribution panel shut down. Do these setups have auto shut off if they see no other power on the plug they are on? what if it is the building, wouldn't other panels still energize the wires, so they would not shut down? Just asking, as my personal experience is quite hair raising and crispy when it comes to inappropriately de-energized circuits. ;)
Anti‑islanding detects the power frequency and constantly tries to shift it. If the grid is on, its frequency won't budge, so the anti‑islanding doesn't trip. If the grid is off, the frequency shifts and it shuts off. A second one would just make it shut off faster.
Curious: is anti-islanding an actual feature, or a necessary behavior of any power source that adds power to the grid? I can't imagine how a second power source would work at all if it weren't syncing to the main source's AC phase. So it seems that if you implement the syncing, you get anti-islanding for free (assuming you handle the case of a missing main source phase by not providing power at all).
This is a newbie question, and I look forward to learning how it's more complex than this.
Micro inverters pretty much all have automatic shutdowns in these situations. They can ‘boost’ the phase/voltage, but won’t replace it if it is missing.
That they shut off is important for a more obvious reason: The microinverters plug into a normal outlet. So the flow of power is invented to the normal situation, here the prongs of the plug are energized.
The body that writes the electrical regulations of course wanted a mandatory special plug and socket that had to be installed by a licensed electrician, which mostly makes balcony solar financially a non starter. Finally they relented after much discussion.
> The $2,000 plug-in solar system installed on Dwyer’s backyard deck in March consists of two 400 watt panels, an inverter, a smart meter and a circuit breaker. It saves him around $35 per month on his power bill because he is consuming less energy from the grid, but he said reducing his carbon footprint was his primary motivation.
so about 5yrs ROI
And in germany a similar 5yr ratio (With some german cities subsidizing installation):
> Weyland spent around $530 for his 600-watt-capacity system. While he’s happy with how his south-facing panels perform during balmy weather, such days are rare in northern Germany. He estimates that he’ll save around $100 in annual electricity costs and recoup his investment in about five years.
The article mentions the main motivation in Germany is also climate change and a feeling of independence, not so much economics
It's nice that it is both. You do something good and also save money. Everyone with a plug at their balcony is throwing money away when not installing some panels, if there is no roof installation already ofc.
I was pricing out using bifacial panels for fencing. It seems like it would cost about twice the price of cedar, but last twice as long (50 years) and have less upkeep.
I started looking at that to boost my roof solar capacity. It looks like it’s permitted by code where I’m at and now the only thing I’m unsure about is vandalism since my property is against a busy street. Seems like a great idea though.
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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 saves 10% per month on my bill (7 euro), this would earn itself back within 3 years. At 5% it's 6 years. Not bad for something that costs next to nothing and is pretty much plug and play. You are not going to get very rich from this obviously. But it's kind of cool. Too bad my balcony faces east and is mostly covered by the shadow of other buildings. I can barely grow plants there.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU
Sorry but Merkel reached almost 50% of energy production with renewables. Germany was already a leader in 2021-2022 with almost 45-50%.
The idea was to grow "sustainably", and in fact it was functioning.
Even the "original" GEG comes from Merkel who was slowly pushing for a change.
Then somehow someone decided they had to restrict and punish and this was our "undeserved" Habeck and friends.
There was no need at all to disrupt the country into what it has become today.
Literally everyone said that. Only the Scholz/Greens government didn't see that.
EDIT: in fact, if we just reverted the commits to pre-2022 we'd be already in a better situation. No new changes. Just start from what was working. And well, keep the new solar panel stuff for balconies. It seems a nice idea (which a lot of countries are doing anyways, so nothing so innovative here).
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.
Dead Comment
This is a bit strong, given that you still need to register with the Marktstammdatenregister and get a permit from your landlord (relevant bc homeownership rate < 50%).
I think the high electricity cost has as much to do with the relative success of this than the reduced friction.
On the technical side you are also limited to 800W max and if you want a battery things get complicated quickly. I will still get one probably but it is far from no bureaucracy at all and plug and play - at least not when you want a battery.
Part of that is because our method of pricing is different than it is in the rest of the world.
It doesn't matter if you got a 3x50A or 3x200A three phase service, only during construction (because a 3x200A uplink will obviously be a decent bit pricier), the monthly fee is the same and very low (I think ~15€ a month). All other costs are rolled into the per-kWh price, making it appear much more expensive than in other countries. On top of that we have a ridiculous tax load because large industry is exempt from a lot of things and consumers gotta pick up the slack.
In contrast, Italians for example pay fees based on capacity which means a home there will usually have 3x10A uplink, something greatly troubling EV adoption and moving off of natural gas [1].
Additionally, Germany is one pricing zone whereas ENTSO-E, the European Commission and the Northern German population would rather like to have two or three pricing zones, given that there is a serious lack of North->South transmission capacity, but our "beloved" Bavarian prime minister Söder plus his green counterpart in BaWü Kretschmann both try to prevent that as much as possible because it would send prices in the south skyrocketing [2].
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1ksqrq1/t...
[2] https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/energiepoli...
Norway: yes, they are doing fine (80% EV, btw, so it seems you can actually use EVs in colder weather... I think the nordics are actually way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to sustainable energy creation, with norway getting about 90% last year from Hydro - super impressive. https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway
France: I think they might turn around, because their low prices are tied to massive subsidies (that are scheduled to end in part end of 2025). And, France has the weather and sun to be even more successfull. That would however mean a decentralization of the power grid and probably storage solutions (batteries, hydro or h2), something thats complicated and not sexy to sell to the public - one of the reasons Germany is so far behind. Our grid is stuck in the past and enough company lobby politicians to keep it that way.
US: it is probably less of a pricing issue and more a topic of resiliance and stabilizing the power grid. It looks like rolling blackouts in the US get more, especially during the summer months (where solar could directly be used for the AC). https://urbanclimate.gatech.edu/current-projects/blackout-tr...
I think it would especially make sense to run your AC on if you have a flexible plan - i remember so many stories of people suddenly having to pay thousands during peak times in summer.
California, Texas and most of the rust belt does have enough solar to easily get by, especially if you add a battery backup.
The issue is not solar per se, but that tiny installations are not very efficient. It'd make much more sense to bolster funding for building sized installations.
Balcony solar production means Germans don't buy solar from their utility when utility costs are low, and they do want to buy some when utility costs are high.
Unsurprisingly, fixed contract prices are bound to be an average of electricity price at different times. With balcony solar, the times where it costs the least will be weighted less in the average, so contract price is bound to go up.
I’m in a tight valley where it snows a ton
Also got an interest free loan from the gov to cover the outlay.
[1] https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/
This is not necessarily a disadvantage. If you have a contract with pricing based on the 15-minute intervals of the day-ahead market ("dynamischer Stromtarif"), then the electricity price spikes in the morning and evening. Typically with such a contract, you also get this higher price for injecting power back into the grid. And the price will almost always be lower than a traditional contract outside of these spikes.
A vertically oriented panel is also ideal for this scenario, because the sun will be low above the horizon when the panel is producing power in the morning.
edit: after looking into a bit more, it seems in Germany you may not actually get dynamic feed-in pricing. Too bad. I assumed that this was the case, because it works like that here in Belgium.
We got the full package and started the deindustrializion instead.
Seems like a good deal :)
What would the opposite have looked like?
Where are you getting these figures from? Is it realistic to expect it to cover 5-10% of your usage?
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.
I’ve searched but the deluge of crappy systems that aren’t what you mean is overwhelming results.
"SUNNIVA 920 W Balcony Power Station BIFAZIAL Full Black Complete Socket TSUN 800 W Inverter, PV Solar System, 2 x 460 W Glass/Glass Solar Modules, Includes 5 m Cable, Bluetooth WiFi, Complete Set"
Literally the first result that comes back for "balcony solar panel kit". 239 Euros with 4.2 star rating and > 200 purchase in the last month.
I can't vouch for this brand or kit but that's what comes up on top on amazon.de. Looks like some Chinese manufacturer, as you would expect. Plenty of pretty positive reviews in German with a few deployment photos. There are indeed a lot of solar panel related products on Amazon. It seems to be a popular product category.
You might get different results from outside Germany.
Considering Germany is still getting 30% of the electricity from the fossil fuels[1], I wonder how that would be a net negative for the environment.
[1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...
Wish these kind of panels were available at that price here. We have pretty much 12 hours of sunlight every single day but household solar panel is discouraged by the state owned utilities.
You'd need rather more panels (and/or some combination with batteries) to hit 900W output constantly. (on the other hand, do you need 900W constantly, or is that peak usage? A battery might be able to handle that.) That said, solar panels are probably a lot more efficient in Indonesia than they are in Germany. Since you're in/near the tropics, perhaps 1500-2000W nameplate capacity could cover your 900W? See if you can get a local expert do the maths for you.
Germany is definitely not one of those zones
As a data point, 200-300W is enough to heat a 35m2 wooden house to 20°C with a heat pump, in Poland, so with external temperatures normally between -5°C and 15°C.
Your watts can go much farther than you think.
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If anything, I'd expect the prices to be lower. Do you have a local Indonesian equivalent of eBay like we do here in Argentina? Or, just eBay?
I assume "electricity capacity of 900W" means that the wires from the transformer (and in the walls) are only rated for 4 amps at 230VAC. This means that you can't really run a 2000-watt air conditioner at all. Whereas, with an 800-watt solar panel charging a battery, you can run a 2000-watt air conditioner 40% of the time when the panel is in full sun. Washing machines and refrigerators are an even bigger difference, since they usually have huge peaks of current draw when they start up their motors, but relatively low average power. So the solar panels may actually be a much bigger boon than simply comparing 800 to 900 makes it sound like. A single car battery can typically source 6000 watts for brief periods of time.
The state's power company seems to stop approving grid-connected solar panel system due to oversupply. It's fine if it's not connected to the grid.
I would have thought that the issue is purchasing power inequality between germany and indonesia, not that they're not available globally at a similar price
Yes, there is inequality as can be seen in Pakistan. But once restrictions are dropped the solar panels take off.
If your house is provisioned for 900W peak, you aren’t running a furnace, a/c, electric heat, or an EV. 4.8 kWh will go a long way in those circumstances. (It’d handle a fridge or two if you could time shift the power, or got one that’s designed to hold cold over night with no power)
I don’t think you strictly need utility approvals to install balcony solar. Usually, you can either not wire them into the house at all, or have a switch to switch the house between grid and solar. (It’s better to back feed into the grid, but that requires utility cooperation. If properly installed the switch I describe is safe but maybe illegal.)
Legality can be a funny thing. Governments can make anything they want illegal. Here in Argentina it's illegal to import used capital equipment that hasn't been refurbished by the original manufacturer or to import maps that say that the Malvinas Islands aren't part of Argentina. In Thailand it's illegal to step on paper currency because the king's face is on it.
Thinking about my home (in the UK) the "worst offenders" seem to be things that heat things, washing machine when it's heating water (~2.5kW), electric oven (~2-4kW), kettle (~1-2kW), electric heater (1-2kW).
Outside of those, we could have most other things on in the house and not be using much more than 1kW, though granted I've been very intentional with electrical efficiency with the electrical and electronic devices in our home (by UK standards).
But one thing to realize is that the industry was just lazy and none of this is actually "needs" a full electric line.
- You don't need actual heat for washing clothes if you using washing detergent. There are no real simple "machines" available as far as I know, except simple camping washing machines
- A rice cooker can work from as low as 250w. I have a "cooking" option in mine drawing 500w taking no longer than the usual 2000w plate (better isolation, optimized heat transfer, ...) to get water cooking.
- Heaters are difficult, I've tried a lot of electric options and they all draw a lot of power when you heat something like 20°C over the outside temperature. However ex. "Ecomat 2000" (small ceramic heater) can easily heat a average room at 450 watts.
One way to get warm and way lower wattage is heating blankets. From 50 - 100w usually on for 50% you get very far with little power.
Not sure if that helps anyone. But I spent a lot of time researching efficient caravan alternatives.
Ergo. 800 watts can be a lot.
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During the brief winter months I just set it to heating elements only, and it behaves like a traditional watertank heater (i.e. doesn't cool house in the winter, using only resistive heating).
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?
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A more fitting title would be "Germany's citizens outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels". The current phrasing makes it sound like it's somehow a thing done by the government, which is not the case. If anything the government is one of the many forces slowing down this progress. And yes, I am aware of things like grid security and stability being a concern. I am not complaining.
Things can really only be DONE on the grass root local level.
Edit: actually even some of the weapons projects are not working out so well.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/chinas...
0 - https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/ten-new-reactors...
> Once in place, people simply plug a micro-inverter into an available wall outlet.
later
>Gründinger and experts at the German Solar Industry Association noted that the devices don’t generate enough power to strain the grid, and their standardized design and safety features allow them to integrate into balconies smoothly and easily.
This seem to talk to the safety of the grid and the balcony. What is done when electricians power down the apartment or worse, the building to work on something? The wires remain energized despite proper distribution panel shut down. Do these setups have auto shut off if they see no other power on the plug they are on? what if it is the building, wouldn't other panels still energize the wires, so they would not shut down? Just asking, as my personal experience is quite hair raising and crispy when it comes to inappropriately de-energized circuits. ;)
This is a newbie question, and I look forward to learning how it's more complex than this.
Yes. This is Germany we are talking here. I doubt any other country has higher (and more annoying) safety standards.
https://www.heise.de/news/RelayGate-Deye-Solar-Microinverter...
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netz-_und_Anlagenschutz
Well, I hope that any competent electrician will measure if there's still any voltage on the circuits after pulling the breakers.
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https://apnews.com/article/balcony-plug-solar-climate-energy...
so about 5yrs ROI
And in germany a similar 5yr ratio (With some german cities subsidizing installation):
> Weyland spent around $530 for his 600-watt-capacity system. While he’s happy with how his south-facing panels perform during balmy weather, such days are rare in northern Germany. He estimates that he’ll save around $100 in annual electricity costs and recoup his investment in about five years.
The article mentions the main motivation in Germany is also climate change and a feeling of independence, not so much economics