Comment by triceratops
4 months ago
It's limited to 800W in Germany and 1200W in Utah. It isn't about to replace utility-scale generation anytime soon.
4 months ago
It's limited to 800W in Germany and 1200W in Utah. It isn't about to replace utility-scale generation anytime soon.
Those limits are just arbitrary regulations. It's easy to install 10x that on a residential roof.
And we come back to my original point. Residential roof installation is the most expensive way to install solar power. Utility scale solar is easily haf the cost of residential.
> Utility scale solar is easily half the cost of residential.
If it's only half, the problem it's not going to stop residential installs. By the time that utility power gets to them here in Australia it costs about 3 times as much, so they are going to install their rooftop systems anyway.
I can't speak for elsewhere, but here in Australia residential installs tend to be over provisioned. A small'ish install is 5kW. That generates about 20kWh per day. Typical household consumption is 1/2 that. Newer builds like mine tend to have far more - upwards of 20kW of panels. That's to cater for charging EV's. The result is grid solar installs are getting hammered by roof top solar: https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-and-solar-hit-record-share-...
7 replies →
Balcony solar is installed on a unit-by-unit basis. It isn't 800W per building; it's potentially up to 800W for each unit in an apartment.
That's still not a lot. Less than a hairdryer uses.
1 reply →
Balcony solar can still satisfy a significant portion of a household's demand.
That only applies if you connect it to the grid in each of those places, I believe.
I can't wrap my head around what off-grid balcony solar even means. Balcony solar is meant for apartment dwellers. Or detached home/townhome owners who don't want to spend on a rooftop install. You aren't installing balcony solar to go fully off-grid.
Sure, but you don't need to go fully off-grid to have an off-grid balcony solar panel. You can connect it to just your freezer, or just a storage heater, or to the batteries you run your homelab off of.