Just 10 years ago, landlords could ban you from putting solar cells on your balcony because it makes their building look “messy”. Now Germany is really pushing forward to let everybody put solar modules on their balcony with these new laws. How is legalization of balcony solar cells in your country? Is setting up solar modules on your balcony easy or difficult law-wise?
Translated by Google:
In the future, private individuals will be able to operate mini solar systems as balcony power plants without complicated registration
This is the coolest part. As I understand it you’ll be able to export 500w to the grid without requiring approval of your provider. The new units just plug into the wall and back feed power into your house to reduce your bill.
Depending on how the law is written, I can imagine people putting a battery between the solar and inverter so they could capture more energy and export the maximum 500w all day & night
Lots of people are already doing that. I’ve seen kits of solar cells and batteries being sold.
Does this make sense if the surface area will be so neglegible anyway? I feel like the ~6m² you can fit onto the side of a balcony is nothing compared to a whole field/flat roof covered with them…
Well let’s do some back of the envelope math.
Conservative estimate: 6m^2 about 6000w of sunlight x 20% panel efficiency x 4hrs/day = 4800wh or 9.5 hrs at max 500w inverter output.
Liberal estimate: 6m^2 about 7200w of sunlight x 25% panel efficiency x 5hrs/day = 9000wh or 18 hrs at max 500w inverter output.
I think this would be worth it for an apartment dweller who doesn’t have access to the roof or a whole field. And producing the power when and where it’s used reduces transmission costs.
https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.html
Run that tool with two 400W panels for more exact estimates.
6 to 9kWh is a generous amount to run a small home on
The important thing on backfeeding is that utility workers will need to isolate at more points before working, otherwise they will get injured by backfeeding/battery systems if they run on infrastructure they are working on.
I’ve never understood why this isn’t the responsibility of the utility to prevent back feeding at the meter when the grid is down.
Those regulations were made when solar power simply wasn’t a thing. Upgrading an entire grid takes time. But of course, the utilities would rather lobby against change than actually get off their butts and change.
Should not be an issue. The inverters that feed into the grid need to follow the phase and frequency of the grid. If the grid is down, there is nothing to follow and it will not feed any power into the grid.
I think an approved set of solar panels and inverters will be able to streamline the process for sure and help quell concerns of electrical worker and grid safety.
We should be allowed to install cells on our windows too, if we can have curtains we should be able to have solar.
At least in Germany it is legally required that rooms get a certain amount of natural light. There are transparent solar panels in development though, which could be just as much as a foil being put onto the glass itself. Not as effective of course, but still.
I got a tiny one on my balcony last year. With WFH it doesn’t put anything through to the grid but already lowered our consumption by 1/10, which is pretty amazing. Plugs into a regular socket. Power provider exchanged the meter to be able to handle it for free, and everything else was also very smooth. I am very happy with it and would put up more, if I had the space.
“To be able to handle it” means a meter that will not record any negative consumption to prevent them from having to pay you for excess energy.
Basically that. As long as he’s using 100% himself it doesn’t really matter, but a friend of mine has one of those old Ferraris meters and getting full price for every kWh fed to the grid means, the whole thing pays for itself within two years.
How does this work in practice? I saw one where you plugged the solar cell into a device and the device plugged into a regular wall socket.
Is it really that easy?Yes with a grid tie inverter it’s pretty much that easy. But doing it yourself this way can be dangerous to electricians who thought they cut the power. If the “island protection” on the inverter fails to disconnect after the loss of power those wires could still be hot.
Edit fixed a word
I would hope electricians would always double check the line they’re working on regardless.
