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

• Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    It literally plugs into the wall.

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    • Buffalox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      That’s amazing. 😀

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