• @barsoap@lemm.ee
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      221 month ago

      I blame Bavaria. If Germany had multiple price zones like other European countries instead of one giant one prices would plummet here in the north, while they’d explode in Bavaria. The state that does not want wind power, does want nuclear power, but already knows ahead of time that its geology (with lots of mountains and granite) is unsuitable for nuclear waste storage. Meanwhile, north German wind power and Scandinavian hydro dams complement each other perfectly. The Bavarians could do the same with the Austrians, they just don’t. They want to eat cake and have it, too.

      • @SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
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        21 month ago

        Am Bavarian can confirm. The CSU has been in power this state since forever. Especially old people just keep voting for them cause it’s the way it always was. They had to form a coalition after the last elections. Their partner is essentially the exact same party but even more right wing. Not even kidding, I could not name a single area where they differ other than their main guy apparently handed out nazi newspapers in his younger years or smth. He blamed it on his brother and then the scandal just died off.

    • @muelltonne@feddit.org
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      81 month ago

      Those small balcony systems pay for them here in Germany at ~35 Cents/kWh in a few months. Even if your power bill is 7x cheaper, they will pay for themselves easily.

    • @Schorsch@feddit.org
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      151 month ago

      nb4 someone laughs at us Germans for pulling out of nuclear power: No, nuclear is not cheap. It’s literally the most expensive way to generate electricity. Solar is cheap and better for the environment.

        • @AAA@feddit.org
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          51 month ago

          French electricity leaves the chat in summer when their plants need to be shut down because the rivers are too warm or don’t carry enough water in the first place. And that’s nothing to say what they will do in the next decade years when a good portion of their reactors should be commissioned out.

      • troed
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        101 month ago

        Nuclear is cheaper than your average electricity cost.

        I know because I’m Swedish and you use us as your cheap electricity.

      • @0x0@programming.dev
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        81 month ago

        No, nuclear is not cheap. It’s literally the most expensive way to generate electricity

        Source?

        Beats coal anytime. Or Russian gas.

        • @Schorsch@feddit.org
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          11 month ago

          I obviously don’t consider fossil fuels as an option. And I do doubt that it’s cheaper to build a nuclear plant compared do building a coal or gas fired one.

      • @Mihies@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        Nuclear is reliable, predictable and stable 24/7 source. Solar not so much and possibly not that great for the environment if we don’t figure out what to do with used solar panels. Also their production is not exactly clean. Whereas nuclear requires a wasted fuel storage somewhere and the fuel will eventually run out of radiation in some hundreds of thousands years.

        • @Schorsch@feddit.org
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          11 month ago

          Storing something extremely dangerous extremely safely for “some hundreds of thousands of years” doesn’t exactly sound cheap, does it?

          • @Mihies@programming.dev
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            -11 month ago

            Not that expensive either. And that’s already included in the energy price. Also volume is magnitudes smaller than used solar panels.

    • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I wonder why only those people have balcony solar. Why aren’t other Germans interested?

      • @AugustWest@lemmy.world
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        31 month ago

        First the trans people come for my energy, then they come for my trains? When will the madness end? Won’t someone think of the children!

  • @MTK@lemmy.world
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    181 month ago

    Read it as germans who are 1.5 meter tall, wondered why them being short is relevant.

  • @Valmond@lemmy.world
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    231 month ago

    This is really nice! This is the future!

    I’d love to know how much they produce, especially during the winter/monthly.

    • Atelopus-zeteki
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      81 month ago

      In the Northern hemisphere, in Winter the Sun is at a low angle, so vertically oriented panels might produce more. As an example, I have a sunroom and at Winter’s Solstice the sunlight reaches about 3-4 meters into the room. At Summer’s Solstice there is no direct sunlight in the room, as the Sun is overhead.

      • @Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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        61 month ago

        couple of things to note:

        1. Not every balcony is southern facing
        2. Most older European homes don’t have A/C yet, so electrical costs are more during the winter months (that trend will change though I imagine)
        3. I think the numbers @Valmond@lemmy.world was asking about involved power output, that of course depends on the size of your array, daily/monthly/yearly differences in weather, and all sorts of little nuances that’s hard to say without averaging out years worth of data.
    • @Obelix@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      That kind of depends on what you’re building. Standard is currently 800W (2 standard solar panels). Older models use 600W, other models are using 2000W and limit it to 800W. That doesn’t make much sense, but skirts our local regulations that limits them to 800W, but of course generates more energy.

      It then also depends on where you live. Can you point it to the sun? Do you live in sunny Spain or in northern Norway? In Germany a 800W system can produce 800-1200kWh per year. Our average electricity price is at 0.35€, so you’ll save 280€-420€ a year. And those systems are dirt cheap, there are deals out there where you can get one for 200€. That is quite a good ROI for something that you can install in an hour.

      If you want to know more, here is a calculator https://priwatt.de/service/ertragsrechner/

      • @Valmond@lemmy.world
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        21 month ago

        Yeah I get all that, but what if I need heating in the winter and have very low consumption in the summer? That is why I’m searching for real world numbers. If you give me some for a specific place then I can at least have a ballpark number if what I might get where I live.

        OTOH as you say, they start to be so cheap it’s almost impossible to go wrong…

        • @Obelix@feddit.org
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          51 month ago

          That won’t really work as that is the worst scenario for solar. I can give you real world data from southern germany. I don’t have balcony solar, but a 13,4kWp solar system on my roof. Here is the data from this year:

          As you can see, days are getting longer in Feb, generation is going up. To get a rough estimate, take my data and divide it by 16,75. That won’t give you a lot of heating, esp. with a normal space heater. Even if you had a scenario, where your 800W solar system would produce 800W in the winter, your space heater will suck 2000W. Take a look at its power cord, you’ll see how much it uses.

          So yeah, 800W is not much, but will cover your running appliances like your fridge, freezer, router or computer on sunny days.

          • @Valmond@lemmy.world
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            21 month ago

            Hey thank you! I’m definitely saving this off for my future calculations!

            You’re totally correct about the rest, and I’m now able to roughly see if I should buy a 800 system or two, or theee… Electric hookups included in the calculation of course.

            • @Obelix@feddit.org
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              21 month ago

              Be careful there - you’re pushing electricity in your grid and there is a reason why only one system is permitted in Germany. Don’t hook up two or three without talking with an expert.

              • @Valmond@lemmy.world
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                11 month ago

                Thank you for your concern, I surre will not do anything crazy without knowing what I’m doing :-)

  • Jolteon
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    11 month ago

    This is great for people who live in the middling latitudes.

  • @btaf45@lemmy.world
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    101 month ago

    By putting the solar panel at a 90 degree angle though it is much less efficient than e.g. a 45 degree angle.

      • @btaf45@lemmy.world
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        31 month ago

        I hung a solar panel vertically on my fence one time. It was facing west rather than south, but I was only getting about 3-4 watts on my 100 watt panel under the best conditions.

      • @cjk@discuss.tchncs.de
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        111 month ago

        Wrong question. The right question is: is the solar panel able to be CO2 neutral (at least) or CO2 negative. We don’t get anything out of it if producing the solar panel costs more CO2 emissions than it saves by producing electricity.

        Before you ask: I don’t know the answer. I was looking into this thread in hope to find it.

        • @dreugeworst@lemmy.ml
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          11 month ago

          To be a positive impact, they just need to be less carbon intensive thans the energy they displace. According to the first results on google, (presumably utility-scale) solar is about 12 times less carbon intensive than natural gas and 20 times compared to coal. So as long as you’re replacing base load and not utility solar, balcony solar could be as much as 10 times less efficient and still come out a net positive.

          Keep in mind also that these numbers keep improving as solar panel manufacturing becomes more efficient and starts using more green energy itself over the coming decades

        • @GaMEChld@lemmy.world
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          81 month ago

          Most people don’t care about being CO2 neutral. The real question is what is the ROI? Will the panel save that person money. If it takes 50 years to pay for itself, I’d say that’s bad. 10 years is more standard. 5 years I say it’s a no brainer. Though I suppose you can also argue value for utility, if that is giving her the ability to power something off grid that would be worth something.

          • Krik
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            51 month ago

            In Germany those panels usually pay themselves after about 5 years depending on the price of the necessary electronics (don’t forget the electricity meter!) and if there’s also a battery.

            • DerGottesknecht
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              31 month ago

              You don’t need a smart meter for this, just plug and play. If seen offers for complete sets from as low as 250€ in supermarkets, so almost everyone can get one and start saving some power.

    • @leds@feddit.dk
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      21 month ago

      Might be most efficient when power is in higedt demands, in the morning and evenings when everyone is using power at home.

  • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    11 month ago

    It’s going to be hard to justify production costs, but in places that subsidize it: it makes perfect sense to scale up solar wherever possible.

    • @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      21 month ago

      The actual problem are electricity prices rising higher and that shortens to time to reach the equilibrium between the investetment

    • @Saleh@feddit.org
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      31 month ago

      Hard to justify costs? The article quotes 6 years of amortization. I know numbers around 8-10 years in Germany.

      Show me any consumer investment, that gives such a good ROI.

      • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        11 month ago

        PRODUCTION COSTS.

        It’s assumed that the equivalent solar wouldn’t be installed somewhere else, so you would need to produce more total to meet demand, meaning increased production costs with an upwards cost growth curve based on scale unless the materials, usually aluminum and slabs of silicon fresh out the oven or sometimes cadmium telluride, are already overabundant.

      • Krik
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        31 month ago

        8-10 years is a fully fledged pv system. The small balcony panels pay themselves after about 5 years, longer if you add a battery.

  • @dahpu@feddit.org
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    1211 month ago

    For first few seconds, I deadass though they are talking about Germans with a height of 1,5 meters.

    • @Rogue@feddit.uk
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      91 month ago

      If everyone puts wind turbines on the balconies they might end up blowing the building over

    • @HansGruber@sh.itjust.works
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      31 month ago

      Hmm no,

      • first oft all: noise. Wind turbines have moving parts, that attached to a building or even worse attached to a balcony creates noise in the whole building. Imagine the rattling of 5-6 ~10 year old, bad maintained, wind turbines.
      • Second: the energy output is rather low. A 1,2KW turbine is about 1.2m/3.9feet big. That’s in spherical, cause it has to be able to rotate by wind direction.
      • Third: balconies are preferred to not have wind, but sun.
      • And last but not least: blades. Every windturbine form factor has (fast) moving blades. If it’s reachable someone is going to stick a finger in it.

      If you’re living more suburban and have a windy detached place to setup a small windturbine that’s an option. On the garage or shed for example.

    • @Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      11 month ago

      Doubt it. Wind around buildings tends to be shit.

      There’s a reason they build turbines on hilltops and out at sea.

    • DerGottesknecht
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      111 month ago

      Sadly really small wind turbines are really ineffective and not worth the investment until you have a really windy balcony. If you only have a few square meters solar is the only choice.

      But I’d still love to have a small windmill in my garden.

  • madjo
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    51 month ago

    My North-East facing balcony doesn’t get enough sun light. But it’s an interesting idea.