Balcony solar is all the rage in Germany. Why not in the US?

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• evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  To summarize for anyone not reading the article:

  German balcony solar panels are connected directly to their home power through a smart inverter that will kill power if the grid power goes down, so lines don’t stay live when you’d think they are dead. Those devices are designed for the voltage and frequency of the German grid, and can’t be used in America. Companies won’t makes devices if they aren’t legal to use, but one state has legalized it, so hopefully we get there soon.

  The other issue is that a circuit breaker essentially monitors the amount of current going into your home’s circuit from the grid as a way of preventing your wires from being overloaded. Since the micro inverter is on the other side of the circuit breaker, you could overload the circuit without tripping the breaker, and that is why they are limited to 800 W.

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• Cort@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Why not in the US?

  Because it’s illegal in 49 out of 50 states (legal in Utah as April) AND there aren’t any units available for sale with 120v output (and the required auto shutoff when the grid is down)

  Most of the German people I’ve asked say it doesn’t make sense to have a battery storage, but they also live in small apartments with little outdoor space for multiple solar panels. Theoretically, if there is enough space for panels a battery backup could keep supplying the max wattage (800w Germany, 1000w Utah) throughout the night

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• SplashJackson@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The only sun the Americans believe in is Jesus

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• gramie@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Funny, I am on a plane preparing to fly out of Munich as I type this, and in the 5 days I’ve been in Germany I haven’t seen anything I could recognize as a balcony solar panel.

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  • rbn@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Then you were really unlucky. While I don’t have one myself, I see them a lot in Germany in all kinds of cities and also villages.

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  • AllPintsNorth@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There are several dozen on my block alone in Munich. Including the one on my house.

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• DrSleepless@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The US where they wanna drill, baby, drill?

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  • 4am@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I know the hogs are making us look so bad that we might never recover; but please keep in mind that we don’t fucking ALL want that. I’d be willing to bet not even a majority.

    We are, however, asleep at the wheel, held hostage by our financial and employment situation, or both

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    • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Not even the oil companies want that. They were given permission do so and said “nah”. Too much supply lowers their profits. It was all bluster

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• Concave1142@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’ve always wondered, how does balcony solar work? Are you charging a large battery and using said battery?

  That article says you just plug it into an outlet. Is it a special outlet of some kind?

  I’m just one of today’s lucky 10,000 and want to learn about it.

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  • TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s a regular German outlet, but they would be more comparable to a drier outlet here in the US, although without being rated for such high loads as an american clothes drier.

    As another commenter said, They’re used to cover the base load of lights, fridge, small electronics. Most all of these systems won’t have any battery storage so the power either gets used in the moment by the home, or exported to the utility. That part isnt really any different from a typical solar installation in the US. They’re just smaller systems so it’s more accessible to lower income people and people that live in apartments.

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    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      US utilities often have anti islanding rules, so power is not allowed to be fed back into the utility without specific equipment designed to stop power flowing back when the grid is down.

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  • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Actually it’s quite smart and simple l: you take any outlet in your house!

    The ac/dc transformer those things simply feeds it’s energy into your house - after all a plug doesn’t care in which direction power flows. .those systems have an upper cap though to prevent people from overloading the net.

    It’s really neat and simple! You basically lower your lower consumption by whatever these things produce.

    I don’t know or have seen anyone using these small balcony cells with a battery though - while technically not a problem I think there’s simply not a use case: they don’t overproduce that much at any given time anyway.

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    • deur@feddit.nl ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Holy fuck delete this shit. You’ve described a death plug, and this shit kills grid workers and innocent people who don’t know the plug is live. You absolutely NEED a proper system set up for this with a PROPER PLUG and the proper safety disconnects to avoid backfeeding the pover grid and KILLING PEOPLE.

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  • UpperBroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s a normal outlet, and the power is limited to 800 watts.

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  • Asetru@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The pv panel just provides the electricity to your house. Essentially, if it provides electricity, your devices use that before using the grid. If it provides excess electricity beyond what you use, it feeds back into the grid. There’s nothing to it, just plug it in. Just remember that if you disconnect a circuit to work on it, you may also have to disconnect your panels because the wires may still be “hot” (they shouldn’t because the PV usually stops providing electricity once it loses the grid frequency, but better safe than sorry).

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• dumnezero@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  How is the balcony solar pv energy being used exactly? Do people have DC chargers for laptops?

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  • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    These setups come with a fitting transformer and you feed their generated power directly in your home power lines via normal plug. It’s quite neat actually in my opinion!

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    • dumnezero@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      how does this affect the meter from the electricity grid company?

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  • sssm@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Uh, you are aware that your laptop charger is providing DC right?

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  • PatrickYaa@lemmy.one ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It is being sent into the general electrical network of the house/flat, where it lightens the base load. There is a maximum of 800W that you are allowed to feed into your home network. Anything bigger is subject to different rules and approval by the electrical service provider.

    800W aren’t a lot, but it can half the cost of your washing machine run, make your fridge power free and let a PC idel or a NAS run. These balcony solar generators usually make back their costs within 5-8 years if you calculate what you’d otherwise pay for the electricuty.

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• thfi@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  archive.is/JTlZx

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