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Comment by zhivota | Hacker News Reader

Philippines is seeing an incredible explosion in solar power, but none of this kind of thing. Instead it's driven by a gray market - equipment is imported, mostly without paying proper duties and taxes, installers are unlicensed, installs are not reported and don't apply for net metering, so the incentive is to maximize your battery capacity as a result.

The lack of state capacity here to enforce rules has allowed solar to flourish.

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My guess Phillipines has much less seasonal variability for solar, which makes it feasible to live almost off grid?

Balcony solar is mostly a token. Maybe only enough to run your electronics. I'm sure Germans are frivolous with their power use (subsidized by their gas, petrol and heating oil use) so percentage wise it's not super trivial.

German here.

I have four panels that are plugged into a 5.12kWh battery. Battery is controlled by a small 3-phase meter and automatically feeds power in when usage is there.

From May to early September the battery and panels were enough to cover almost all power usage in my household.

That's insanely little power use. Small flat and single person I guess?

I have 24 imperfectly placed panels and live around Auckland, New Zealand, modest house, 5kWH battery too.

They theoretically provide well over my needs in summer, but due to how pricing works it - I still pay a bit even in peak of the summer. Everything is electric in my house with toys like EV and heated pool.

> toys like EV and heated pool.

Well, thats the explanation: A German household usually does not have a pool :-D

300kwh per month, not exactly enormous consumer. EV uses more.

Heating consumes a lot, because of this at least in some of Europe we still use natural gas over electricity. This allows your only energy spending to basically become a television and a fridge, sometimes your washing machine and dishwasher.

There is a good amount of variability in weather, there is a rainy season, but solar irradiance is mostly the same and strong here overall. So a big array and a big battery can see you through everything but the worst string of rainy days, and for that you can get a diesel generator if you really need it, or just stay on grid.

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