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Comment by wongarsu | Hacker News Reader

Solar on the balcony railing is very popular right now, mostly amongst apartment renters

> Solar on the balcony railing is very popular right now, mostly amongst apartment renters

i have yet to see a single solar panel on an apartment building in Brandenburg, Germany, whereas a large portion (perhaps even a majority) of single-family and duplex units here have them. Perhaps they're more common in the richer parts of the country where a profit can be more readily turned, but not up here.

> Perhaps they're more common in the richer parts of the country where a profit can be more readily turned, but not up here.

These cost about 300-400 euros in local Aldi or Lidl (yes they sell them occasionally) with inverter, ready to plug-in (800W limit). At these prices they're accessible to everyone

> At these prices they're accessible to everyone

It's inaccurate to assume that "300-400" is readily within anyone's reach. 300-400 is virtually a king's ransom for some of us.

It sounds like German citizens are poorer than Pakistani and sub-saharan citizens. Sorry to hear the fall, Germany used to have first world per capita income.

How much is your rent?

That's maybe a problem of east Germany in particular. I see Balkonkraftwerke (small balcony solar arrays, 1-4 modules with a microinverter plugged directly into an outlet) everywhere when I drive through major west German cities, even on rental apartment balconies.

  > 1-4 modules with a microinverter plugged directly into an outlet

Interesting, is it really that simple and legal/up to code/safe? My naive assumption is that feeding back to mains would be more complex/costly that that but very cool if not.

These sorts of inverters are grid-tied so they turn themselves off when theres no grid to sync to (eg during an outage). My understanding is that's the main safety issue, and backfeeding while the grid is up is mostly a regulatory concern (as long as you have a modern meter that can tell the difference between electricity going in vs out)

As long as the inverter feeds at most 800W. That's about 4A, on a circuit designed for 16A. You need a new meter, but the old analog meters can run backwards and you can continue using it until you power company replaces it. You do have to register the setup, but that seems to be a quick process. And if you lose power the inverter turns off

Perfectly fine (at least here in the US) as long as your power meter is new enough to not double charge you for feeding back into the grid if your home draw drops low enough. Micro inverters are starting to really take off in modern solar installs to cut down on wiring distances since you can feed it into nearby AC circuits.

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