‘If 1.5m Germans have them there must be something in it’: how balcony solar is taking off
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Thanks.
Going off grid was absolutely a consideration, but only for a very short while. There are too many downsides. We would need twice as much solar capacity, and a way bigger battery, and batteries are still pretty expensive, but even with that, we would still need a generator. And we wouldn't be able to sell surplus energy. It would more than double the cost, and only provide 25% better self sufficiency for the whole year than we have now.
We live in Denmark, and we can risk to have to go through almost all of December with only a few days sun. Running a diesel generator for power would be both noisy and smelly, It would also require more work to maintain, and it would actually cost slightly more to us a generator than to simply buy the electricity from the grid.Remember doubling our capacity will not bring us from 41 to 82% self sufficiency. Because there is some loss in storage, and even double our battery capacity would not be enough to store 48 kWh like we made today in the span of only 7 hours. (Today was the best day of the year yet.
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Even in January on a perfect day, we can make twice what we use, but such days are rare in January. (we use about 15 kWh per day.)The final problem with a generator is that we would never be able to achieve remotely the stability we have with the grid. We've been living here for 6½ year, and the power has only been out once!!!
The problem with making it bigger than we have at all, is that after you've reached a point of above 50% self sufficiency, you are entering the area of diminishing returns quickly. On a yearly basis we are about 72% self sufficient. To reach that extra 22% probably cost 50% extra.
This is if you live as high north as we do, because the extra capacity is only usable in the winter, in the summer it's all surplus, and you get so little for selling the power it's basically irrelevant. There is too much solar now, so when solar panels have high yields, prices often go down to almost zero.
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1.5m Germans are 150cm people !
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Are you under the impression that the people buying solar for themselves are against sustainable energy solutions on a state level?
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Both.
The reduction of infrastructure and leveraging existing buildings without reducing their existing utility vs converting a new space to be a dedicated power plant plus the infrastructure to move power from less populus (normal case because the cost of populus land is high due to demand) to more populus space.
I also idealogically support it because it makes more controllable by people and less controlled by an outside entity (a corporation/state).
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This is great for people who live in the middling latitudes.
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Megagermans just sound evil.
And milligermans, well there's a vaccine against that I think.
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a mix of both is good, there's arguments for doing local co-generation. Where you essentially turn a community into it's own power plant, and when you're talking about things like micro inverters, the cost doesnt really change.
Is it more efficient to do it at a utility grid scale? Yes, does that make it overall better? Not really, you still have to deal with grid inefficiencies, and maintenance, and well, you still have to deal with installations, so the cost isn't that significant at the end of the day.
Solar is one of very few renewable energy sources that you can actually locally build and maintain on a small scale, no sense in removing that utility from it, that's part of the reason it's so popular.
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it's not actually that bad, unless you live next to a gen 1, or maybe gen 2 plant. Unless you're next to one of like, three existing operational RBMK plants.
By the time you needed to evacuate from that area due to a nuclear disaster, you would be well informed, and probably gone already. Even if you didn't the radiation exposure is likely to be incredibly minimal. Probably under the regulated limits.
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not very much, especially during the winter, the best way to optimize panel production is by pointing it towards the sun most effectively, the farther north, or south, of the equator the less effective it is, the less directly it points towards the sun in general, the less power you make.
It might still produce a decent amount of power overall, through a reasonable period of time, but it's probably WELL below what you could be making with an optimized install, especially one with solar tracking, granted some solar power is still better than no solar power, so you do get tradeoffs at the end of the day.
as another commenter said, there are solar power calculators out there, if you're looking for rough figures, use them.
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welcome to the land of windmills
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Agreed. I maybe a radical DC home evangelist but yeah AC has its place still and it being THE standard for home appliances is a good example of the powers of scale.
So far for my home usage I'm standardizing on 48vdc because that is the last multiple of 12 before you go above OSHAs low voltage regs.
From there I really want to standardize further on the power delivery spec, because I just love the idea of smart grid for my home. I can then have dispered batteries in my home for either the primary benefits of that device is portable but doesn't always need to be (laptop, power tool batteries, little robot thing, car, etc) or as a way to reduce some crazy limited time power draw (like servers starting up, oven running for an hour a day, etc).
From there maybe just Microadapter for a few standard circuits so the outlets work the same.
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Germany's energy transition is a masterclass in contradictions. Dismantling nuclear plants—clean, reliable, and efficient—only to lean on Russian gas and coal is not just shortsighted but self-sabotaging. The Energiewende, while ambitious, has exposed Germany to geopolitical vulnerabilities and grid instability. Renewable expansion is commendable but insufficient without robust infrastructure and energy storage.
The reliance on balcony solar panels and rooftop systems reeks of performative sustainability. These micro-solutions barely scratch the surface of Germany's energy needs yet are paraded as revolutionary. Meanwhile, bureaucratic inertia delays large-scale renewable projects.
The nuclear phase-out, driven by political expediency rather than pragmatism, left an energy vacuum filled by fossil fuels. A true green transition demands realism: embrace nuclear, bolster renewables, and stop romanticizing half-measures.
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This me me lol. Thank you
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any form of collective project requires organization, which conveniently is not required for an individual project that can be as impulsive and unsafe as the individual wants.
