Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels
24 points by andsoitis 9 hours ago | 7 comments
  • grecy 5 hours ago |
    Brilliant. About a five year payback period, similar to a larger rooftop setup. I look forward to a future where every outdoor surface is made of solar panels .
  • Tarsul 4 hours ago |
    yeah it's nice but if you rent, most owners forbid putting it on the railing (e.g. because it could fall down).
    • nine_k 3 hours ago |
      The landlords may install such panels, and pocket the savings / profit from generation.

      BTW from my back-of-envelope calculations, the panels are the cheapest part, the inverter / charger costs more, and batteries to sustain several hours of load, even more.

      • 7373737373 3 hours ago |
        I still don't understand why landlords (especially big corporations with tens or even hundreds of thousands of apartment buildings, garages and parking spaces) don't make use of the huge roof area they have.
        • nine_k 2 hours ago |
          Some of them do, even here in NYC. A quick look on Google maps e.g. over roofs of Brooklyn, where buildings are much lower and roofs are wide, shows a large amount of solar panels on more flat buildings, like stores, warehouses, or hospitals. Sometimes I notice installations on roofs of 3-5-story buildings just while walking around.

          But many apartment buildings (here) are too tall for the roof to capture enough energy, and mounting solar panels on walls is both not very efficient (because of the light's incident angle) and much harder.

          • positr0n 17 minutes ago |
            How does the height affect the energy captured? Or are you meaning the steepness of the roof?
    • junga 3 hours ago |
      Laws regarding this just changed (couple of days ago). Landlords can't just forbid this anymore. See https://www.heise.de/en/news/Balcony-power-plants-Federal-Co...