cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/19852594

Edit: Be aware that some people try to post misinformation here, such as that such plants are not safe in the case of a power failure (untrue), or that they are not economical (untrue, their advantage is that they have very low installation costs).

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        In North Korea you need your balcony solar cells to power your phone because most households have no power lines. Germans pretty much copied this tactic when energy prices briefly went through the roof and it caught on. North Korea did it first and it‘s actually kind of sad people have to resort to such measures in a seemingly rich country like Germany because we‘ve made us very energy dependent when we were world leaders in renewables not long ago. There should be solar and wind parks everywhere by now but citizens have to take care of that themselves. It has a nice side effect of being less reliant on the grid but no balcony cell is gonna power your fridge for very long on it‘s own. It‘s just cheaper in the long run but it really shouldn‘t be. The government shouldn‘t have slept on it for so long.

        • freebee@sh.itjust.works
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          23 hours ago

          No one is powering their fridge with it. 99,9 % of all buildings in Germany including households are very well grid connected. The North Korea comparison seems really far fetched. It’s just a simple way to 1) have small consumer money be invested in local energy production while 2) making energy production a bit greener. No one with a Balkonsolaranlage is cutting the cable to the grid. Everyone without their own mini Solaranlage is also perfectly able to keep phones charged. The Balkonsolaranlages just help a little bit, if you then also for example run the laundry on a sunny afternoon… The biggest gain imo is cultural: raising public awareness about energy, prices, foreign dependency, timing of big appliance usage…