by bilsbie on 10/5/25, 10:18 PM with 627 comments
by jillesvangurp on 10/6/25, 6:44 AM
Cost in the article is cited at 550 euro. I just browsed amazon.de and you can buy complete plug and play kits here in Germany for as little as 239 euro. Most kits are priced between 300-350 euro. I did not see a many kits over 500.
I pay about 70 euro per month for electricity. If it saves 10% per month on my bill (7 euro), this would earn itself back within 3 years. At 5% it's 6 years. Not bad for something that costs next to nothing and is pretty much plug and play. You are not going to get very rich from this obviously. But it's kind of cool. Too bad my balcony faces east and is mostly covered by the shadow of other buildings. I can barely grow plants there.
by melasadra on 10/6/25, 12:05 AM
Wish these kind of panels were available at that price here. We have pretty much 12 hours of sunlight every single day but household solar panel is discouraged by the state owned utilities.
by holri on 10/6/25, 4:56 AM
by numlock86 on 10/6/25, 6:33 AM
A more fitting title would be "Germany's citizens outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels". The current phrasing makes it sound like it's somehow a thing done by the government, which is not the case. If anything the government is one of the many forces slowing down this progress. And yes, I am aware of things like grid security and stability being a concern. I am not complaining.
by paulmist on 10/6/25, 12:34 AM
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/chinas...
by WaitWaitWha on 10/5/25, 11:51 PM
> Once in place, people simply plug a micro-inverter into an available wall outlet.
later
>Gründinger and experts at the German Solar Industry Association noted that the devices don’t generate enough power to strain the grid, and their standardized design and safety features allow them to integrate into balconies smoothly and easily.
This seem to talk to the safety of the grid and the balcony. What is done when electricians power down the apartment or worse, the building to work on something? The wires remain energized despite proper distribution panel shut down. Do these setups have auto shut off if they see no other power on the plug they are on? what if it is the building, wouldn't other panels still energize the wires, so they would not shut down? Just asking, as my personal experience is quite hair raising and crispy when it comes to inappropriately de-energized circuits. ;)
by syntaxing on 10/6/25, 12:49 AM
https://apnews.com/article/balcony-plug-solar-climate-energy...
by bickfordb on 10/6/25, 12:28 AM
by alexey-salmin on 10/6/25, 6:43 AM
Production of electricity like production of steel makes most economical sense at scale. When the economic policy fails so hard it has to resort to backyard anything you know where it's going.
by tecleandor on 10/6/25, 12:53 AM
That gotta be a big laptop!
by Tepix on 10/6/25, 10:57 AM
Nowadays, having some solar and a battery is very affordable and means you don't need power from the grid perhaps 80% of the time. And with batteries soon getting a lot cheaper ( https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/catl-sodium-ion-battery-packs/ ) and photovoltaics continuing their price trajectory, soon most alternatives will be unattractive, in particular nuclear.
by ZeroGravitas on 10/6/25, 9:42 AM
by nebula8804 on 10/6/25, 2:13 AM
by asdefghyk on 10/6/25, 4:11 AM
by tdiff on 10/8/25, 8:38 PM
> “Even if we attached panels to all suitable balconies across the country, we’d still only manage to meet 1 percent or less of our overall energy needs,”
the article concludes that the most prominent effect of balcony panels is of psychological nature.
At best it pays out in 5 years. Our landlord, for example, requires the panel to be installed by certified professionals, hence it will take even longer to break even, even assuming the device will not malfunction during the time, which I am sceptical about, especially when talking about the cheapest sets from amazon/kaufland.
by vintagedave on 10/6/25, 8:14 AM
Is this safe, feeding electricity into the local cabling? I recall a discussion on HN a few days ago with someone running a parallel cabling setup and there was _strong_ criticism over electrical safety; that was an entirely parallel set of cabling.
How would this work re phase, load, how it balances re the mains input, if it goes through the fuse box, etc?
by squarefoot on 10/6/25, 6:13 AM
by rmoriz on 10/6/25, 12:21 AM
by renewiltord on 10/6/25, 12:39 AM
by infecto on 10/6/25, 12:44 PM
by maelito on 10/6/25, 1:12 PM
by petesergeant on 10/6/25, 5:27 AM
That's a shame, and makes the whole thing feel performative, especially for a country that nixed nuclear.
by pembrook on 10/6/25, 10:40 AM
HOWEVER, I have to point out how incredibly silly this is. There is a reason why historically we have pooled our resources under the government to produce and manage energy infrastructure centrally.
Let's say these 500,000 individuals instead pooled their 1,000 euro (including installation & time) and funded one industrial-scale solar development.
You could generate a renewable 600MW+ (a 4X factor on what these randomly placed individual units will ever deliver in reality) for that money. And efficient centralized battery storage also becomes an option there.
Then your fellow citizens can spend time creating surplus value in the field they are actually experts in and also you don't have a 3rd world hellscape of outdated balcony solar units to look at out your window for the next 30 years.
by owenversteeg on 10/6/25, 11:26 AM
Everyone replying disagrees, but I think it's a perfect analogy: just like the backyard furnaces, these small-scale installations are inefficient, provide a negligible portion of total energy needs (<1% of total energy needs if everyone in Germany did it, from TFA), look ugly and - this is the most important - provide the feeling of doing something about a serious problem without actually doing anything substantial.
by pfdietz on 10/6/25, 1:04 AM
by silexia on 10/7/25, 1:43 PM
by JamesAdir on 10/6/25, 9:52 AM
by rsanek on 10/6/25, 5:25 AM
by e2e4 on 10/6/25, 9:09 AM
by aszantu on 10/6/25, 6:00 AM
by MagicMoonlight on 10/6/25, 9:09 PM
Not sure it’s a good idea really
by plantain on 10/6/25, 1:15 AM
Why can the government or industry not build solar power at an industrial scale, and then bring it to people's homes via the existing infrastructure at a price that makes this kind of micro-scale setup completely uneconomical?
It's bad enough when we have to put solar panels on actual roofs to reduce electricity bills. This is just absurd. Where are the economies of scale? Why are individuals having to take responsibility for their own energy generation? Are we doing our own sewer and water supplies next?
by thiago_fm on 10/6/25, 5:44 AM
I bet some people wouldn't install it now because it looks kinda meh.
by lnsru on 10/6/25, 6:26 AM
by fcpk on 10/6/25, 1:23 PM
by monkeydust on 10/5/25, 11:28 PM
by nisten69 on 10/6/25, 4:36 AM
But you're fucking Germany bro....where's your massproduced precision reactors and turbines everywhere..the planet needs work...what the f.. are you guys even doing..a rising standard of living means 10-100x more energy you know that right?
This whole attitude feels like clapping for a new garden tomato in the middle of a famine... go put some fucking tractors on the field lol but like seriously though.
by m101 on 10/6/25, 7:05 AM
by wileydragonfly on 10/6/25, 1:05 AM
by duxup on 10/5/25, 11:49 PM
They also kinda look terrible :(
by tomhow on 10/5/25, 11:47 PM
(And a reminder that the guidelines ask "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter".)
by pyrale on 10/6/25, 7:11 AM
One has to question how this choice came to make sense to the german public.
by somedude895 on 10/6/25, 8:08 AM
by lm28469 on 10/5/25, 11:15 PM