How Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

https://grist.org/buildings/how-germany-outfitted-half-a-million-balconies-with-solar-panels/

Posted by gotshroom

3 Comments

  1. Irish property management companies won’t even let you put clothes drying in view of a balcony, never mind solar panels. NIMBYism reigns supreme here when it comes to almost anything.

    I lived in a place where we got threatening legal letters for putting a bike on the balcony hidden behind a shrub.
    We got letters for putting a clothes rack inside the room with the doors of the balcony opened.

    My local city council successfully fought someone in court for putting a very unobtrusive bike storage shed inside their own driveway.

    We are every bit as bad as the US on stuff like this. Very much an outlier in Europe.

  2. Found this today, might be a bit unsafe:
    https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/01/30/swedish-authorities-issue-warning-about-solar-panels-on-balconies/

    Edit: just read more about this
    https://innovationorigins.com/en/beware-plug-in-balcony-solar-panels-are-risky/

    Apparently the impact that this has in electricity consumption is minimal, essentially due to the dangers that it can carry if used more.

    So basically we have a technology that is inefficient (in the article it says that at max capacity it can deal with a fridge) due to the danger that it can carry if used massively, and this is without considering the waste it generates. How is this a good thing? Seems to me that this is more for people to say look how cool and green I am than an actual real solution

    Sorry pal but it seems like green washing to me. Germany should focus on fixing actual problems, not just trying to earn internet points