Skip Navigation
96 comments

  • In countries like Germany, balcony-mounted solar panels are all the rage.

    First image is of an overcast sky with a guy with two nearly-vertical solar panels

    Third image is of a small solar panel under a roof receiving a little bit of light at an extreme angle through an opening in a covered attic balcony

    Here's a solar farm in the US:

    https://www.energy-storage.news/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/de-shaw-1024x731.jpg

    It's pulling a lot more power per panel.

    Another:

    https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ipd/images/project_profiles/img_az_navajo_nation_kayenta_solar_program.jpg

    Another:

    https://cdn.orsted.com/-/media/feature/vocastimport/orsted_permianenergycenter_cod_0398_698890436958977.png?mh=1440

    Does it make sense to stick solar panels on a house relative to drawing power from a solar farm? Sure, it can, if your house is remote and it's costly to connect it to the grid, or if what you're after is a secondary, backup source of power if you lose grid connectivity.

    But if what you want is cost-effective generation, it's preferable to stick a panel on a solar farm somewhere where one can leverage economies of scale, maintenance is easy and done by someone who maintains a ton of these on a regular basis, and where you're optimizing location and panel orientation for solar potential.

    Like, if you want more solar power on the European grid, you probably want more solar farms in Spain, which has substantially more solar potential than Germany:

    https://globalsolaratlas.info/

    Not someone sticking them on their balcony in Germany.

    What Germany could do to help solar and wind, if it wants to do so, is drop complaints about building (inexpensive) above-ground transmission pylons, which would help smooth out different generation at different locations on the European grid.

    https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/farmers-and-grid-operators-demand-end-rules-prioritising-underground-power-lines-germany

    Farmers and grid operators demand end to rules prioritising underground power lines in Germany

    The Federal Requirement Plan Act (Bundesbedarfsplangesetzes), which provides a legal framework for the construction of the high-voltage transmission lines needed to reshape the power grid as ever-more of Germany’s power supply comes from renewables, prioritises underground cables over the construction of visible pylons, which have been met with public resistance.

    “So far, we are assuming that all projects will be realised as underground cables,” a BNetzA spokesperson told the paper.

    EDIT: If you want to criticize the US for something as solar goes, it'd probably be Trump throwing tariffs on everything, which makes it more costly to deploy solar panels and other electrical hardware manufactured abroad.

    • The biggest advantage of balcony-mounted solar panels, at least where I live, is that you need 0 permits. You don't need to ask your neighbors, you don't need to ask your power company, you don't need a building permit, you don't need an electrician and you don't need a solar company to install them for you.

      They don't replace large solar farms but if you incentivize people to DIY their solar installation you get tons of additional cheap and clean energy from a source that would be wasted otherwise.

      • What are you powering with it? How are you storing the energy? It just doesn't make any economic sense to me. I'd love to see some statistics on the total cost of one of these systems and how much power people are actually getting. Maybe it makes more sense in Germany where energy prices are nearly double the US average. But I'd still love to see some real examples to back that up.

    • I think you're comparing apples to oranges.

      The main selling point for a "Balkonkraftwerk" is that it's cheap and doesn't require an electrician to install.

      That way they pay off rather quickly and result in a lower electricity bill when you look at a span of 10-15 Years.

      Solar farms in Spain on the other hand require massive investments in Infrastructure and the farms themselves. Not to say they're a bad idea, but it's a very different thing.

      • That way they pay off rather quickly and result in a lower electricity bill when you look at a span of 10-15 Years.

        In the US, a lot of problems have arisen around residential solar installation companies providing loans using questionable, if not outright fraudulent sales tactics based around misrepresenting returns.

        https://time.com/6565415/rooftop-solar-industry-collapse/

        The Rooftop Solar Industry Could Be on the Verge of Collapse

        A decade ago, someone knocking on your door to sell you solar panels would have been selling you solar panels. Now, they are probably selling you a financial product—likely a lease or a loan.

        Mary Ann Jones, 83, didn’t realize this had happened to her until she received a call last year from GoodLeap, a financial technology company, saying she owed $52,564.28 for a solar panel loan that expires when she’s 106, and costs more than she originally paid for her house.

        In 2022, she says, a door-to-door salesman from the company Solgen Construction showed up at her house on the outskirts of Fresno, Calif., pushing what he claimed was a government program affiliated with her utility to get her free solar panels. At one point, he had her touch his tablet device, she says, but he never said she was signing a contract with Solgen or a loan document with GoodLeap. Unbeknownst to Jones, the salesman used "yoursolarguyujosh@gmail.com" as her purported email address—that of course, was not her email address. She’s on a fixed income of $960 a month, and cannot afford the loan she says she was tricked into signing up for; she’s now fighting both Solgen and Goodleap in court.

        Her case is not uncommon. Solar customers across the country say that salespeople obscure the specific terms of the financial agreements and cloud the value of the products they peddle. Related court cases are starting to pile up. “I have been practicing consumer law for over a decade, and I’ve never seen anything like what we are seeing in the solar industry right now,” says Kristin Kemnitzer, who represents Jones and says her firm gets “multiple” calls every week from potential clients with similar stories.

        Companies running solar farms, on the other hand, have bean-counters in place who are in a legitimate position to run the numbers, and those companies take on the risk themselves. With residential solar, it's not companies saying "hey, we'll put our capital on the line, and just want somewhere to put a panel", it's "here's a graph and some numbers, and there's a great investment opportunity for you with your capital...just sign on the line here!" Needless to say, this opens the door to a lot of potential unpleasantness.

        EDIT: If a company sends a guy to your doorstep to tell you how they have a fantastic investment opportunity for you and your money which will make you a great return, a good response is to ask them why they don't want to make the investment themselves. Is it generosity on their part, letting you enjoy the benefit of the investment?

        If a solar panel installer wants to put panels on a roof I own, that's fine with me. All they have to do is pay me for the space on my roof and cover the cost of the hardware and its installation. In return, I will let them have the entire value of the generation done, rather than taking it myself. If this is a legitimate investment with a valid return for the party putting money down, then they should be happy to do that.

        One notices that there are no residential solar installer companies who are engaging in that sort of arrangement. Cell tower companies do that with cell infrastructure, but not residential solar installers. Hmmm.

    • There is a benefit to putting solar close to the load. Less transmission losses/upkeep.

      There is a benefit to putting solar on roofs/buildings... Less environmental impact.

      • https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=105&t=3

        The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that annual electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses averaged about 5% of the electricity transmitted and distributed in the United States in 2018 through 2022.

        As per the globalsolaratlas map I linked above, you have on the order of 50% more solar potential in Spain than Germany. And that's before one considers alignment, shade from surrounding structures and vegetation, and similar factors that affect sticking panels on a house, which favor solar farms.

96 comments