Just 10 years ago, landlords could ban you from putting solar cells on your balcony because it makes their building look “messy”. Now Germany is really pushing forward to let everybody put solar modules on their balcony with these new laws. How is legalization of balcony solar cells in your country? Is setting up solar modules on your balcony easy or difficult law-wise?
Translated by Google:
In the future, private individuals will be able to operate mini solar systems as balcony power plants without complicated registration
This is the coolest part. As I understand it you’ll be able to export 500w to the grid without requiring approval of your provider. The new units just plug into the wall and back feed power into your house to reduce your bill.
Depending on how the law is written, I can imagine people putting a battery between the solar and inverter so they could capture more energy and export the maximum 500w all day & night
The important thing on backfeeding is that utility workers will need to isolate at more points before working, otherwise they will get injured by backfeeding/battery systems if they run on infrastructure they are working on.
Should not be an issue. The inverters that feed into the grid need to follow the phase and frequency of the grid. If the grid is down, there is nothing to follow and it will not feed any power into the grid.
I’ve never understood why this isn’t the responsibility of the utility to prevent back feeding at the meter when the grid is down.
It’s a good question but say they want to bring power back up to the neighbourhood as quickly as possible, and they would have to go to each house and shut off each connection which would take a while even if it were accessible outside without needing to inform the property owners. One residential transformer usually serves from 1 to 15 or so households. Many transformers are on one branch that extends from a substation. So depending on where they isolate, just one customer out of hundreds can backfeed which can make the entire branch dangerous to work, since normally it is all expected to be off on the other side. Putting the responsibility on the utility to isolate every downstream point is time consuming and just extends blackouts. However if they were to isolate smaller sections up and downstream it might make it easier.
Those regulations were made when solar power simply wasn’t a thing. Upgrading an entire grid takes time. But of course, the utilities would rather lobby against change than actually get off their butts and change.
Does this make sense if the surface area will be so neglegible anyway? I feel like the ~6m² you can fit onto the side of a balcony is nothing compared to a whole field/flat roof covered with them…
Well let’s do some back of the envelope math.
Conservative estimate: 6m^2 about 6000w of sunlight x 20% panel efficiency x 4hrs/day = 4800wh or 9.5 hrs at max 500w inverter output.
Liberal estimate: 6m^2 about 7200w of sunlight x 25% panel efficiency x 5hrs/day = 9000wh or 18 hrs at max 500w inverter output.
I think this would be worth it for an apartment dweller who doesn’t have access to the roof or a whole field. And producing the power when and where it’s used reduces transmission costs.
I got a tiny one on my balcony last year. With WFH it doesn’t put anything through to the grid but already lowered our consumption by 1/10, which is pretty amazing. Plugs into a regular socket. Power provider exchanged the meter to be able to handle it for free, and everything else was also very smooth. I am very happy with it and would put up more, if I had the space.
“To be able to handle it” means a meter that will not record any negative consumption to prevent them from having to pay you for excess energy.
Do you have a link to some thing like the one that you got?
I would really like a solution like this, not some full on integrated into my house, sells surplus back to the grid kind of solution, just some thing to slightly reduce how much I fall back to the grid for power without insane installation costs would be amazing.
We should be allowed to install cells on our windows too, if we can have curtains we should be able to have solar.
At least in Germany it is legally required that rooms get a certain amount of natural light. There are transparent solar panels in development though, which could be just as much as a foil being put onto the glass itself. Not as effective of course, but still.
super easy
Barely an inconvenience.
How does this work in practice? I saw one where you plugged the solar cell into a device and the device plugged into a regular wall socket.
Is it really that easy?
Yes with a grid tie inverter it’s pretty much that easy. But doing it yourself this way can be dangerous to electricians who thought they cut the power. If the “island protection” on the inverter fails to disconnect after the loss of power those wires could still be hot.
Edit fixed a word
What’s interesting about this is that you don’t have to necessarily pull permits for electrical work, as nobody is running conduit or attaching to electrical panel.
Im grandfathered into an old solar rate plan, and if I change the system or add more panels I’ll lose that privilege. However, if I don’t have to tell the city or utility anything, that opens the door for expanding with balcony solar panels.
