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Comment on ‘If 1.5m Germans have them there must be something in it’: how balcony solar is taking off

“Plug-in solar is part of the whole array of options,”

I don’t understand how this works, for our system the “plug in” is an inverter that cost about $3000.- (half if it doesn’t have to handle a battery), and it needs to be installed by an authorized electrician.
For a small system as the one shown, the price of panels are peanuts, the ones shown should cost less than $150. While to the cost of inverter and getting it connected are way way higher.

The article says nothing about how the power from those panels is made usable.

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schnokobaer@feddit.org ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The “balcony” bit isn’t the defining characteristic, it shouldn’t be taken literally. Some people do have their “balcony solar power” on their roofs.

What defines it is limitation to 800 W and inverters that come with a normal Euro Type F (“Schuko”) plug and no legal requirement for professional installation. A layman can literally plug it in to an existing wall socket. Given that they are capped at 800 Watts, the inverters are also the simplest type and dirt cheap (although often they are literally just software-capped and identical to higher power ones, make of that what you will). Complete systems (2 panels, cabling, inverter) cost between 299€ and 800€ depending on quality. You genuinely only have to buy a fixture that suits your needs and a mate to help you install it.

Proper several-Kilowatt-systems are very expensive in Germany too.

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- Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thanks really good info. 👍😀
  
  A layman can literally plug it in to an existing wall socket
  
  I had no idea that is possible??? Is that special for Germany? (sorry for keeping on with new questions). 😋 I’ve never heard of that option here in Denmark.
  
  cost between 299€ and 800€
  
  No wonder it’s a popular option, our system is of course bigger with 11.2 kWh and 7.5 kWh battery. but it was $17000 1½ year ago. Prices have dropped to $12500 for a similar system, but still such an 800W system is dirt cheap by comparison.
  
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  - schnokobaer@feddit.org ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    I had no idea that is possible??? Is that special for Germany?
    
    I mean, the regulation seems to be, but there’s no fancy tech going on. I’m not an electrician but I think I can explain, as I have recently tried to understand it as well.
    
    So German wall outlets usually have a 16 A fuse and the wiring in the walls is dimensioned for safety reasons to accommodate slightly higher current (I think they are 2.5mm² gauge allowing up to 20 A but don’t quote me on that particular part). I suppose it would be the same or very similar in Denmark, or maybe most of Europe that uses 230V/50Hz AC.
    
    Now, normally, if you have dangerously powerful load that would melt your wires, let’s say 5 kW, and you plug it in to an outlet the fuse will just pop and you’re safe. If however you have a 2 kW PV system connected to a wall outlet nearby, it would theoretically be possible that your 5 kW load draws 13 A (3 kW) from the mains through the fuse and another 8.7 A (2 kW) from the PV system over the same wire in the wall that is only rated at 20 A but now carries 21.7 A. And the fuse would never pop at 13A. A fire hazard. The number of 800 Watts is basically just what will always comfortably fit into the safety margin of the wiring in German houses. All higher power systems need to be hardwired “behind” the fuse box so that every Amp goes through the normal 16 A fuse.
    
    still such an 800W system is dirt cheap by comparison
    
    Absolutely. I guess the low threshold for installation allows some kind of mass market economy of scale.
    
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    Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Great post! Thanks for doing the math and explaining the concepts!
    
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  - Gerprimus@feddit.org ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    There are already a few requirements for operating the balcony panels, At least here in Germany:
    
    You need a suitable electricity meter
    
    You have to register with a relevant authority and inform the electricity provider that you are operating a “balcony power plant”.
    
    The microconverter should run on its own secured circuit. (“Should”, will certainly do very few) But technically it is simple:
    
    Set up panels
    
    Connecting necessary plugs
    
    Microconverter to the socket
    
    Be happy that you produce up to 800 watts of your own electricity
    
    I think it’s almost irrelevant how many panels you ultimately split up. However, no more than 800 watts may be fed in.But if you have panels with, let’s say, 2000 watts, you can of course charge various batteries with them beforehand. Nobody can say anything against it.
    
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    DacoTaco@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Just for your information : belgium is allowing the balcony solar panels this year, but they have put limits on which you can install. The power supplier needs to have approved the kit you install. This is just to prevent people from getting cheap crap from the internet.
    Other than that, same rules!
    
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    Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    You need a suitable electricity meter
    
    That makes sense, we also needed new meter, and that was about €200.- with installation. Not a big deal for a big installation, but for a system that can cost only €300.- an extra 200.- would be pretty significant.
    
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humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Balcony solar is a set of diy technologies that require no utility permissions.

In Germany, NL, you can just plug it into socket and it works somehow.

In us you can use powerstations and also adapters that sync draw from battery as it charges from ac in house.

It pays for itself even with more expensive equipment, by not needed license, permission, that can lead to cheap efficient panels costing over 3$ per watt. Small systems that just offset use instead of selling back, have higher revenue offsets in high per kwh priced markets.

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- BombOmOm@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  In Germany, NL, you can just plug it into socket and it works somehow.
  
  This is incredibly dangerous as it will feed power into the grid even when the grid is down. You might say ‘that is great!’, yeah, well, the line technicians who cannot work on cables because you are energizing them think otherwise.
  
  One of the reasons solar grid-feeding systems are expensive in the US is they have extra equipment to disconnect the system from the grid if it goes down. Your house can will still have local power, but you won’t be energizing powerlines technicians are trying to fix.
  
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  - RunawayFixer@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    These plugin systems shut down automatically when there’s a power outage. To make sure that they really do shut down when needed, in Belgium only plugin systems that have been approved by the network management organisation may be used. The other countries that allow these probably have similar precautions.
    
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Hugin@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There are two main inverter approaches. One big inverter that takes the DC from a bunch of panels and converts it into AC and micro inverters where each panel gets it’s own small one placed directly under the panel.

The micro inverters cost around $150 each. So you need around 10 panels before the single inverter becomes a good choice.

Installers love the micro because the install is easier. However as a owner with say 30 panels you now have 30 points of possible failure instead of the 1.

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- Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Oh boy, apparently there’s a lot I don’t know. It’s really cool there are those cheaper options now.
  
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zergtoshi@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Have a look here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcony_solar_power

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- Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  OK thanks, so they are indeed complete systems including inverter, so it can be connected to the grid.
  I suppose they’ve made some cheap low power inverters then, but the power still needs to have stable voltage an frequency and synchronization. So I wonder how cheap it’s possible to make?
  I also suppose it still needs an authorized electrician to connect it? Unless Germany has some fancy system that is prepared for “plug in” connection of a local power source.
  
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  - kalleboo@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    In the EU, as long as it’s under 800W it can be plugged directly into an outlet in your home without any kind of installation, back-feeding the grid that way.
    
    You’re not getting paid anything for the power you send back into the grid so anything you don’t use you lose.
    
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    Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Still very cool, because selling surplus power is almost completely worthless anyway. (at least it is here)
    In the summer when you can sell, prices are generally extremely low, we have sold about twice what we use, but the value of selling is only about 5-10% on average, compared to the savings of using it ourselves. That’s because the price often drop to close to zero in the middle of the day, and sometimes even below.
    Electricity itself is dirt cheap, the reason the prices are high are transportation and taxes, and short peak prices. Here transportation alone is more than the electricity itself during winter.
    And we are only paid the pure electricity price here, which I suppose is the case most places.
    
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  - genevieve@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It literally plugs into the wall.
    
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    Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That’s amazing. 😀
    
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Aurora_TheFirstLight@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I wonder if a whole building could use one or two inverters?

I feel that’ll make the cost reasonable

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- Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  For apartment buildings I don’t think that’s possible, since electricity is a per household connection with separate meter.
  
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Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If you pay 3000€ for an inverter then that’s probably included installing and whatnot. You can get a cheap 50€ 4kW inverter on aliexpress, or an expensive 500€ 10kW one.

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- Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  No the price was not including installation, We have 11.2 kW panels and 7.5 kWh batteries. Installation was almost $5000.- !! That was probably mostly the 28 panels on the roof. But we had one installer handling everything, who was also responsible for the electrician.
  
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  - Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That’s a massive installation though! Wow!
    
    Also, you got a biig roof!
    
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    Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    When we bought the house, that was one of the parameters on our list for “the perfect house”. So the roof to the garden is also almost perfectly towards the south. 😀
    Even in January we’ve made 41% of our power consumption from the solar panels. 😎 You are right that it is a bit oversized according to “normal” recommendations which are 8 kWh for a house the size of ours, but we went a bit bigger in preparation for air to water heat pump, so warming the house will be electric, (currently wood pellets), and also we plan to buy an electric car within the next 2 years.
    
    Also it was a bit for fun, because of the movie spinal tap, so our panels go to 11 instead of just 10, because we need that little bit extra. 😋
    
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