Comment on Europeans are making the most of cheap solar panels – by creating green garden fences
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 day ago A bit of graffitty should be ok, and solarpanels are surprisingly sturdy against physical attacks. But honestly, in a typical residential neighbourhood you will be probably fine.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Shading degrades solar module performance, but I was thinking about thrown stones and sctatching with a hard metal bit which immediately destroys the prestressed glass pane only designed to withstand 30 mm hail.
And I live in a very nice neighborhood. Elsewhere, these things would be destroyed weekly.
rainwall@piefed.social 1 day ago
Most of these fence panels are bi-facial, i.e they have panels on both sides. They catch light reflected from the ground/snow/etc. They cost a bit more than single pane panels, but not a lot more. Like 15-20%.
You dont get nearly double the power, but they tend to work a bit better then single panels facing the sun because solar panel efficeny degrades with heat. When the sun is at its strongest, traditional roof mount panels take a significant efficiency hit. Because bifocal labels are generally positioned more flexibly, they have much better cooling that compensates for their bad angle.
Hard disagree about vandalism. You will likely never have an issue, and even then the individual panels aren’t that expensive to replace. A wood fence would likely cost more to cover the same surface area of one 7ft x4 ft panel.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
Again, you build a public-sidewalk-facing solar module fence, and see how it fares. You’re way mismodeling the incentive and motivation of the human primate to fuck with things just because they’re there and within reach.
I don’t know what kind of failed state you live in (Haiti?), but I am near 100% certain that they would be fine in any residential neighbourbood that I previously lived in and that includes places in 3rd world countries. There would be probably a higher risk of them being stolen than intentionally damaged.