Solar Story

 If you drive around urbanized areas of Germany enough....you tend to notice a small but growing trend.  Some Germans living in apartment buildings, with balconies....are hanging up solar panels on the rails of the balcony.

Drawing a big charge?  NO.

If you figure the average sized balcony, you can probably hang up a max of two solar panels.  Experts claim this is enough to draw about 600 Watts.  

Cost factor for the two?  Around 750 to 850 Euro.  The instructions to install?  Simple enough that a guy can do it himself.

If you figure around five hours a day of sunshine....you can 'produce' around 3,000 Watts per day (more or less).  The math says (not that I'm an expert on this stuff).....that you can charge up a 125ah battery in about five hours.  

What you could probably power, if you had full sunshine for the day?  Basically all the lights in the house (if they were LED), the water heater, your tab/cellphone recharger, your toaster, your coffee maker, and a small fridge unit.  AC unit or electrical heating?  Forget about it.  Charging your car?  That's a no-go with the apartment deal.  

Course, the question comes up....from these two hanging panels on the balcony you rent....where does all this cabling lead to (meaning  the battery), and how you tie this into your apartment 'grid'?  

Then to the final issue....did you even ask your landlord about this?

So a case came up recently.....renters didn't ask permission of the landlord.  They just installed the two panels.  Court came out in the past week and said....because solar stuff is mentioned in the Constitution....there are certain aspects here.  There was apparently nothing in the rental agreement to prevent the installation of the two panels on the rails of the balcony.

The odds that future contracts will have limitations?  I'd give it a 99-percent chance of happening.

A smart idea?  I would offer three observations:

1.  You have to face a good direction for this to work, without clutter of trees or other buildings.  I might suggest that fewer than 40-percent of German apartment dwellers are in a good direction to gain off this idea.

2.  Clouds being a problem?  There's maybe a hundred days out of the year in Germany when it's zero clouds and you get the full payback off the panels.

3.  If you were pretty conservative (being skimpy) on your apartment items.....I would imagine that you could fully power your apartment at least a hundred days out of the year.  But fitting into a model of 'pretty conservative'?  I'd suggest less than 10-percent of German society fits that model.  

All of this action requiring a professional electrician?  I've watched the videos (installation of the two panels idea) and would admit that I could do most of the work myself.  I would hire the electrician to come in and ensure it was correct in the end.

As for this taking off as a trend?  It's anyone's guess.