Balcony solar panels are now widespread in countries such as Germany – where more than 1m homes have them – but have until now been stymied in the US by state regulations. This is set to change, with lawmakers in New York and Pennsylvania filing bills to join Utah in adopting permission for the panels, with Vermont, Maryland and New Hampshire set to follow suit soon.
You must log in or # to comment.
My neighbors have one of these… I’m pretty sure they didn’t get permission for it. It probably feeds back into mains if the power is out.
Power companies: “We’re overloaded because of AI datacenters and need some relief. Let’s let people pay for their own hardware. Its OK, we’ll still charge them more for the remaining demand than we used to for the full amount. Plus we’ll find a way to increase delivery fees for the privilege.”
Only half kidding, more solar is more good.
In the US there’s no way the average consumer will come out ahead. None. Anything they give you nowadays is either a loss leader wrapped in subscriptions or pay over time/interest scams or just neutered to the point of futility.
One which doesn’t require professional installation has real potential to cut the cost of solar by making it about who can sell a good-enough panel the most cheaply. That hasn’t happened so far in the US, and means that rooftop solar is something like 4x the price it is in other countries.
That article’s light on details. In addition to a legal agreement with the utility, a major hangup in the US is that if you’re going to be feeding power into a grid-connected house, you need to install an automatic disconnect so that you don’t feed power when grid power is out.
What differs in Germany? Were automatic disconnects already standard? Are they not required? Do their balcony solar setups have automatic disconnects built in?
I think they require the disconnect to be built into the panel, but not 100% sure
